
Gass. 
Book. 















a 



THE LIFE OF 
GEORGE BORROW 







'< iJ'r/f 



'owxrw- 



//„, 



THE LIFE OF 

GEORGE BORROW 

COMPILED FROM UNPUBLISHED 
OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, HIS 
WORKS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 

BY HERBERT JENKINS 



WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN PHOTOGRAVURE, AND 
TWELVE OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK 

JOHN MURRAY, LONDON 

1912 



f 



<o 






^ 



/7 



TO 

JOHN MURRAY THE FOURTH 

IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF THE KEEN INTEREST 

HE HAS SHOWN IN THE WRITING OF THIS LIFE OF 

A MAN WHOM HE WELL REMEMBERS AND MUCH ADMIRES 

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 

r"\URING the whole of Borrow's manhood there was 
-*— ' probably only one period when he was unquestion- 
ably happy in his work and content with his surroundings. 
He may almost be said to have concentrated into the seven 
years (1833-1840) that he was employed by the British and 
Foreign Bible Society in Russia, Portugal and Spain, a 
lifetime's energy and resource. From an unknown hack- 
writer, who hawked about unsaleable translations of Welsh 
and Danish bards, a travelling tinker and a vagabond 
Ulysses, he became a person of considerable importance. 
His name was acclaimed with praise and enthusiasm 
at Bible meetings from one end of the country 
to the other. He developed an astonishing aptitude for 
affairs, a tireless energy, and a diplomatic resourcefulness 
that aroused silent wonder in those who had hitherto 
regarded him as a failure. His illegal imprisonment in 
Madrid nearly brought about a diplomatic rupture between 
Great Britain and Spain, and later his missionary work in 
the Peninsula was referred to by Sir Robert Peel in the 
House of Commons as an instance of what could be 
achieved by courage and determination in the face of great 
difficulties. 

Those seven rich and productive years realised to the 
full the strange talents and unsuspected abilities of George 
Borrow's unique character. He himself referred to the 
period spent in Spain as the " five happiest years " of his 
life. When, however, his life came to be written by Dr 
Knapp, than whom no biographer has approved himself 



x PREFACE 

more lcyal or enthusiastic, it was found that the records of 
that period were not accessible. The letters that he had 
addressed to the Bible Society had been mislaid. These 
came to light shortly after the publication of Dr Knapp's 
work, and type-written copies were placed at my disposal 
by the General Committee long before they were given to 
the public in volume form. 

A systematic search at the Public Record Office has 
revealed a wealth of unpublished documents, including a 
lengthy letter from Borrow relating to his imprisonment at 
Seville in 1839. From other sources much valuable 
information and many interesting anecdotes have been 
obtained, and through the courtesy of their possessor a 
number of unpublished Borrow letters are either printed in 
their entirety or are quoted from in this volume. 

My thanks are due in particular to the Committee of 
British and Foreign Bible Society for placing at my 
disposal the copies of the Borrow Letters, and also for 
permission to reproduce the interesting silhouette of the 
Rev. Andrew Brandram, and to the Rev. T. H. Darlow, 
M.A. (Literary Superintendent), whose uniform kindness 
and desire to assist me I find it impossible adequately to 
acknowledge. My thanks are also due to the Rt. Hon. Sir 
Edward Grey, M.P., for permission to examine the 
despatches from the British Embassy at Madrid at the 
Record Office, and the Registers of Passports at the 
Foreign Office, and to Mr F. H. Bowring (son of Sir John 
Bowring), Mr Wilfrid J. Bowring (who has placed at my dis- 
posal a number of letters from Borrow to his grandfather), 
Mr R. W. Brant, Mr Ernest H. Caddie, Mr William 
Canton, Mr S. D. Charles, an ardent Borrovian from whom 
I have received much kindness and many valuable sugges- 
tions, Mr A. I. Dasent, the editors of The Athenceum and 
The Bookman, Mr Thomas Hake, Mr D. B. Hill of 
Mattishall, Norfolk, Mr James Hooper, Mr W. F. T. 
Jarrold (for permission to reproduce the hitherto unpub- 



PREFACE xi 

lished portrait of Borrow painted by his brother), Dr F. G. 
Kenyon, C.B., Mr F. A. Mumby, Mr George Porter of 
Denbigh (for interesting particulars about Borrow's first 
visit to Wales), Mr Theodore Rossi, Mr Theodore Watts- 
Dunton, Mr Thomas Vade - Walpole, who have all 
responded to my appeal for help with great willingness. 

To one friend, who elects to be nameless, I am deeply 
grateful for many valuable suggestions and much help ; 
but above all for the keen interest he has taken in a work 
which he first encouraged me to write. To her who gave 
so plentifully of her leisure in transcribing documents at 
the Record Office and in research work at the British 
Museum and elsewhere, I am indebted beyond all possibility 
of acknowledgment. To no one more than to Mr John 
Murray are my acknowledgments due for his unfailing 
kindness, patience and assistance. It is no exaggeration 
to state that but for his. aid and encouragement this book- 
could not have been written. 

Herbert Jenkins. 

f (i unary, 19 12. 



CONTENTS 

PAOK 

Preface ........ ix 

CHAPTER I 

1678 — MAY 1 8 16 

The Fight at Menheniot Fair. Thomas Borrow. The Borrows 
of Trethinnick. The Flight of Thomas Borrow. He 
Enlists in the Coldstream Guards. Promotion. Big Ben 
Bryan. Transferred to the West Norfolk Militia. East 
Dereham. Ann Perfrement. Marriage. Wandering with 
the Regiment. Thomas Borrow Receives a Commission. 
Birth of John Borrow. His Charm. Birth of George 
Borrow. His Strange Personality. His Dulness. "A 
Prophet's Child." Early Days. The Viper. Convulsions. 
Robinson Crusoe. Norman Cross. Sapengro. Ambrose 
Petulengro. Education. Edinburgh. The "Bickers." 
David Haggart. Norwich. The West Norfolks Dis- 
banded. "The Hundred Days." The Regiment Re- 
gathered. Ireland. Erse and Bare-backed Riding. 
" Mustered Out." Captain Borrow Retired . . . 1 



CHAPTER II 

MAY 1 8 16 — MARCH 1 824 

Settlement at Norwich. Education. The Norwich 
Grammar School. Borrow's Schoolfellows. Languages. 
"Poor Old Detterville." The Norwich Horse Fair. Mr 
Petulengro. Studying Romany. Humdrum School-life. 



xiv CONTENTS 



Chapter II — continued. 



Running Away. An Ignominious Return. Deliberations 
on George's Future. Articled to Simpson & Rackham. 
The Law and Languages. The Welsh Groom. The 
Goats and the Sheep. Mr William Simpson. The Cor- 
poration Library. John Borrow. The Bruisers of 
England. William Taylor. Borrow as a Linguist. Dr 
John Bowring. Father and Son. " What Do You 
Propose to Do?" The Return of John. Death of Captain 
Borrow . . . . . . .19 



CHAPTER III 

APRIL 1824 — MAY 1825 

Borrow Goes to London. The Green Box. Authorship. 
A Vegetarian Publisher. "A Drug, Sir!" The Dairy- 
man's Daughter. Sir Richard Phillips' Munificence. 
Celebrated Trials. A Publisher's Philosophy. Seeing 
London. A Visit from John. A Painter of the Heroic. 
The " Screaming Horrors." Ab Gwilym a Drug. 
"Glorious John." A Publisher's Wrath. Crime and 
Style. Klinger's Faustus. " Fit for the Fire." Joseph 
Sell. A New Theory. A Significant Passage. Coinci- 
dences ....... 40 



CHAPTER IV 

MAY — SEPTEMBER 1 82 5 

Farewell to London. The Spirit of Independence. Stone- 
henge. The Evil Eye. Jack Slingsby. A Gentleman 
Tinker. His Stock-in-Trade. Mrs Heme. The Welsh 
Preacher. Mr Petulengro. Mumber Lane. An Offer of 
Marriage. The Screaming Horrors Again. Isopel 
Berners. The Flaming Tinman. Love and Armenian. 
Isopel Departs. Mr Petulengro on Marriage. The 
Wonderful Trotting Cob. The Autobiographical Value of 
The Romany Rye. Borrow's Accuracy. Ambition. 
Borrow's Ability to make Friends. A Shrewd Judge of 
Character. Back at Norwich . . . .60 



CONTENTS xv 

CHAPTER V 

SEPTEMBER 1 825 — DECEMBER 1 832 

PAGE 

"The Veiled Period." Romantic Ballads. Benjamin Hay- 
don. A Great Traveller. Seeking Employment. Dr 
Bowring's Help. "The Songs of Scandinavia." Military 
Ambition. The British Museum. Failure. Unsettled 
Prospects. Angry with the Belgians. Borrow and Bow- 
ring. The Sleeping Bard. " A Terrible Fellow." Borrow 
Leaves London. "The Three Glorious Days." John 
Borrow in Mexico. Sorrow's Correspondence with the 
Army Pay Office. "Poor George." The Disadvantages 
of Independence. Dogged Determination . .72 

CHAPTER VI 

JANUARY — JULY 1 833 

The Skeppers of Oulton Hall. The Rev. Francis Cunningham 
Introduces Borrow to Earl Street. The Bible Society's 
Manchu-Tartar Programme. Borrow Tramps to London. 
His Expenses. Interview with the Bible Society's Officials. 
Undertakes to Learn Manchu. Return to Norwich. A 
Puzzling Language. " Advancing at Full Gallop." " I 
Have Mastered Manchu." The Examination. Encourage- 
ment. The Sub-Committee's Recommendation. Rebuked 
for Self-Confidence. The Idiom of Earl Street. Appointed 
Agent of the Bible Society. "One Burst of Laughter." 
Letters of Introduction ..... 92 

CHAPTER VII 

AUGUST 1833 — JANUARY 1834 

Departure for Russia. A Transient Fit of Delirium. 
Hamburg. The Godless Hamburgers. St Petersburg. 
"The Finest City in the World." East and West. 
Russian Notabilities. Baron Schilling de Canstadt. His 
Unique Library. John P. Hasfeldt. Borrow's Eagerness 
for Work. Mr Lipovzoff. " Rather a Singular Man." 
Official Delays. The British Minister Assists. The 
Translator appointed Censor. Permission to Print. 
" Heartless Apathy. ;; Severe Cold. The Manchu Type. 
Manchu a Puzzling Language. Remittances Home. The 
"Horrors." A Bottle of Port Wine a Day. The 
Emperor's Apothecary . . . . 107 



xvi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 

FEBRUARY — OCTOBER 1 834 

The Problem of Distributing the Manchu New Testament. 
Borrow's Ambition to Become a Missionary. His Daring 
Scheme. Commercial Morality in Russia. Exorbitant 
Prices. Death of John Borrow. The "Only Hope." 
"Our Darling John." The Russians Indifferent Cooks. 
Borrow's Devotion to His Mother. New Quarters. "The 
Best Servant I Ever Had." Earl Street Without News. 
"What is Mr Borrow Doing?" Borrow Explains. Mr 
Lipovzoffs Testimonial. The Missionary Project Again. 
The Offer Likely to be Favourably Considered 



CHAPTER IX 

NOVEMBER 1834 — SEPTEMBER 1835 

An Unconventional Editor. Brain Fever. Enthusiasm at 
Earl Street. Mr Jowett's Tribute. Trink-Geld. Borrow's 
Popularity at Bible Meetings. Editor and Censor. 
"Honorificabilitudinity." China Again. The Govern- 
ment's Veto. The Printing Completed. Red Tape. 
Official Suspicion. Borrow Defiant. Other Occupations. 
Translation. Targum. The Talisman. Moscow. The 
Singing Gypsies. Catalani and the Pope's Gift. Marina 
Rotze. " A Scream of Wonder." George Borrow, 
Preacher. Borrow's Work at St Petersburg Completed. 
The Cost of the Manchu New Testament. Borrow's 
Opinion of Russia. Norwich Once More . 



CHAPTER X 

OCTOBER 1835 — JANUARY 1836 

Hopes of Further Employment. The Church as a Profession. 
A Visit to Oulton Hall. Inactivity. News from Earl 
Street. Portugal. " Favour Us with Your Thoughts." 
Borrow Eager for the Portuguese Expedition. He Sails for 
Lisbon. A Roving Commission. The State of the Country. 
Expedition to Cintra. Adventures. The Alemtejo. Evora. 
"The Precious Little Tracts." Letters of Introduction. 



CONTENTS xvii 

Chapter X — continued. PAOB 

The Jews of Lisbon. " Probing the Wound." Bound for 
Spain. The "Idiot" Guide. The Tittering Nuns. An 
Unpleasant Adventure. Elvas. Patriotism. " Romantic 
Spain." Badajos ...... 148 

CHAPTER XI 

JANUARY — OCTOBER 1 836 

The Condition of Spain. Civil War. The Gypsies of Badajos. 
A Disreputable Crew. Christian Exhortation. A Gypsy 
Contrabandista. On the Road to Madrid. Adventures 
by the Way. The Affairs of Egypt. Madrid. " A Filthy 
Uncivilised Set." The Rival Factions. Mendizabal The 
British Minister Intervenes. An Interview with MendizabaL 
A Philosopher. Hopeful of Success. The Article in El 
Espanol. A Spanish Bible Society. A New Ministry. 
Without Money. The Duke's Secretary and the Council 
of Trent. Diplomatic Delays. Borrow Preaches to the 
Multitude. Rebuked by the Bible Society. Intolerable 
Heat. The Hon. George Villiers. Borrow's Diplomacy. 
" The Affair is Settled.— Thank God ! ! ! " Permission 
Granted. Reaction. Dr Luis De Usoz y Rio. The 
Revolution of La Granja. The Death of Quesada. 
The Press Free. Borrow Ordered Home. Returns to 
England ....... 163 

CHAPTER XII 

NOVEMBER 1 836 — MAY 1 837 

Borrow Sails Again for Spain. A Hospital Ship. Nearly 
Wrecked. " Une Grappe de Gitanos." Cadiz. " Miser- 
able, Distracted Spain." Fears for Borrow's Safety. A 
Perilous Journey. "Should I Perish." The Mysterious 
Baron Taylor. Terrible Cold. " Nearly Two Bottles of 
Brandy." Madrid. The Printing Commenced. The 
Question of Distribution. " I Wish ... to Depend 
Entirely Upon Myself." The Wild People. The Tour 
Authorised. The Printing Completed. The Black Anda- 
lusian. "A Most Atrocious Fellow." Antonio Buchini. 
The Barber-Surgeon. The British Minister Assists 
Officially . . . . . .185 

b 



xviii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XIII 

MAY — OCTOBER 1 837 

PAGE 

Departure for the Northern Provinces. Spreading the Gospel. 
"The Accursed Books." Fever. The Grand Post. The 
Roads Infested with Robbers. A Narrow Escape. 
Borrow Saves the Life of His Black Andalusian. The 
Unpopularity of the E?itero. The Viper - Catcher's 
Horrible Fate. Apprehended as a Spy. "Peasants, 
I Bring You the Word of God." Cape Finisterre. 
Arrested as Carlist Spies. Ordered to be Shot. The 
Village Hero Intervenes. Episodes in the Life of an 
Entero. The Ten Gentlemen of Orviedo. A Strange 
Adventure. Borrow decides to Return to Madrid. A 
Perilous Journey. Indifferent to Danger. The End of 
the Expedition. Borrow's Methods as a Missionary . 199 



CHAPTER XIV 

NOVEMBER 1837 — APRIL 1838 

The State of Affairs in Madrid. The Moderado Cabinet. 
Count Ofalia. Advertising the Scriptures. A Spanish 
View of the Bible Society. " The Vassal Slaves of Bloody 
Rome." Lieutenant Graydon. A Reckless Evangelist. 
Conflicting Plans. Borrow Opens a Depot. Antonio Gives 
Notice. The Gospel Proclaimed in Yellow, Blue, and 
Crimson. The Gitano and Basque Versions of St Luke. 
Francisco. Gypsies as Translators. Borrow's Strange 
Guests Arouse Suspicion. Religious Instruction. The 
Enemy Active. " Fighting with Wild Beasts." Merchant 
or Diplomatist. A Warning. The Prohibition. The 
Gitano St Luke. Borrow Explains the Bible Society's 
Views. An Interview with Count Ofalia. Graydon in the 
South. The Marin Episode. Borrow Indignant. "A 
Dangerous Pestilent Person." The Strange Attitude of the 
Bible Society. The Seizure of the Basque and Gitano St 
Lukes. Official Inconsistency. A Philological Curiosity. 
An Official Remonstrance ..... 



CONTENTS xix 

CHAPTER XV 

MAY I-13, 1838 

AOK 

The "Police Agent." His Hurried Departure. Official 
Reports. The " Police Agent's " Boast. Borrow in 
Hiding. His Arrest. Francisco's Distress. Borrow 
Imprisoned. His Friends Visit Him. The Carcel de la 
Corte. Sir George Villiers Intervenes. Borrow Refuses 
to be Released. The Spanish Government in Quandary. 
A Cabinet Council. The British Minister Snubs the 
Civil Governor. The Affaire Borrow. The Captain- 
General Joins In. An International Affair. Sir George 
Villiers' Grave Warning to Count Ofalia. The Graydon 
Complication. The Queen Regent Appealed To. A Serious 
Situation. The Queen Regent's Opinion of Her Ministers. 
Whatever the British Minister Requires Shall be Complied 
With. Borrow Released " With Unstained Honour." The 
Death of Francisco. Antonio Returns. John Hasfeldt 
on George Borrow . . . . . .231 



CHAPTER XVI 

MAY — JULY 1838 

Borrow's Dispute with the Bible Society. Lieut. Graydon's 
Indiscretions. The Premier's Advice. " Mr Graydon 
Must Leave Spain." The Advertisement. A Difficult 
Situation. The Archbishop of Toledo's Friendly Message. 
Marin and "the Honours of Martyrdom." An Interview 
with the Primate. The Prohibition. Borrow Undismayed. 
The Apathy of the General Committee. Another Biblical 
Tour Suggested. The Effect of Borrow's Indiscreet 
Letters. A Rebuke from Earl Street. The General 
Committee's Strange Attitude. No Sympathy with 
Borrow. Borrow's Justification. " I Now Await Your 
Orders." A Discreditable Rebuke. Borrow's Dignified 
Response. Recalled. "A Preposterous Idea." En- 
deavours to Discredit Borrow. Count Ofalia Advises 
Borrow to Devote his Talents to Other Things . . 248 



xx CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XVII 

JULY — NOVEMBER 1 838 

PAGK 

Infertile Days. Borrow's View of Martyrdom. Another Bible 
Journey. Villa Seca. Juan Lopez. Romance and 
Chivalry. Eduardo Lopez. The Moslem Kalimah. 
Return to Madrid. Letters from Earl Street. Borrow's 
Reply. The Bible Society Supports Graydon. Strained 
Relations. An Expedition to Aranjuez. Ocafia. Lopez 
and His Testaments > Seized. Borrow Warned in Time. 
Nearly Assassinated. Across the Guadaramas. In the 
Midst of the Carlists. "A Contest of Fiends." Lopez 
Imprisoned. Borrow Rescues Lopez. Madrid. Ordered 
Home. Fever and Delirium. Borrow Returns to England. 
Meetings at Earl Street. " Report on Past and Future 
Operations." A Tribute to Borrow .... 268 



CHAPTER XVIII 

DECEMBER 1 838 — MAY 1 839 

Borrow Again Proceeds to Spain. Seville. Official Activity. 
"The Manchegan Prophetess." Madrid. The Delinquent 
Antonio. Sidi Habismilk. Another Rebuke from Earl 
Street. Operations Near Madrid. Victoriano Imprisoned. 
The Colporteur System. A Great Success. Spanish 
Official Methods. Borrow " Exceedingly Superstitious." 
The Return to Seville. A Perilous Journey. The Testa- 
ments Seized. Subterfuge. A Glimpse of Borrow. " The 
Mysterious Unknown." An Adventure with Gypsies. 
Colonel Napier Astonished. A Most Extraordinary 
Character ....... 



CONTENTS xxi 

CHAPTER XIX 

MAY — DECEMBER 1 839 

PAQB 

Strange Missionaries. "The Masanielo of Seville." Borrow 
Takes a House. The Demand for Bibles. Mrs Clarke of 
Oulton Hall. Her Arrival in Seville. The Dismissal of 
Antonio. An Instinctive Missionary. An Expedition to 
Tangier. Hayim Ben Attar. Difficulties with the Vice- 
Consul. Ordered to Return to England. Borrow's Manage. 
Lord Palmerston's Circular. Approaching a Crisis. 
Tourist Indiscretion. Summoned Before the Gefe Politico. 
"Terrible Orders from Madrid." The Alcalde del Barrio. 
Borrow Again Arrested. His Imprisonment. The 
Courtesy of Criminals. Borrow Liberated . . . 298 



CHAPTER XX 

ECEMBER 1839 — MAY 184O 

Glimpse of Borrow at Seville. "El Brujo" (the Wizard). 
" His Wife and Daughter." With the Gypsies to Madrid. 
An Official Complaint. The Reply. Borrow's Romance. 
Mary Clarke of Oulton Hall. A Mysterious Engagement. 
Mrs Borrow's Felicitations. Literary Work. The Bible 
Society Anxious. " No News from Mr Borrow." Reasons 
for Delay. " I Embark Next Month." Desire for 
Martyrdom. Departure from Spain. Arrival in London. 
Marriage. No Further Opening at Earl Street. George 
Borrow and the Bible Society. An Honourable Associa- 
tion. Borrow's Loyalty. A Character Study . . 316 



CHAPTER XXI 

MAY 184O— MARCH 1841 

Oulton Cottage. The Octagonal Summer-House. Hayim 
Ben Attar Brings Lights. Life at Oulton Cottage. The 
Harveys. Personal Recollections of Borrow. Literary 
Activity. The Zincali. Richard Ford. "A Great Sensa- 
tion." Borrow and the Gypsies. Their Attraction for 
Him. Other Romany Ryes. Authorities. " My Only 
Study is Man." American Editions of The Zincali . 330 



xxii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXII 

APRIL 1 84 1 — MARCH 1 844 

TAGE 

Borrow's Letters to the Bible Society. Friendship with Ford. 
The Bible in Spain. Ford's Advice. "A Queer Book." 
Restlessness. The " Reader's Report." Ford's Influence. 
Horse-Breaking. The Feud of the Dogs. Borrow's 
Strange Note. Borrow Urges Greater Expedition. "A 
Rum Mixture." " Borrow is Such a Trump." Ford's 
Advice. The Bible in Spain Appears. A Chorus of 
Approval. Fame. Sir Robert Peel's Tribute. Gil 
Bias With a Touch of Bunyan. Borrow Lionised. 
Death of Allan Cunningham. The Old Restlessness. 
Melancholy. Lessons in Singing as a Cure for Indiges- 
tion. Homesick. Sitting for His Portrait. The Painter's 
Ruse. Death of John Murray the Second. Seeking 
Employment. Anxious to Fight the Irish. Money- 
Making. Women's Views of Borrow . . . 342 



CHAPTER XXIII 

MARCH 1844 — 1848 

The Journey to the East. The Meeting of Vidocq in Paris. 
Borrow's Foible. The First of Lavengro. "My Life." 
Ford's Visit to Oulton. Ford's Hand-Book. Borrow's 
Review. An Unfortunate Incident. Ford's Generosity. 
Samuel Morton Peto and His Railway. "Bardolph and 
Peto." Mr Gladstone's Letter. An Undesirable Passage 
in The Bible in Spain. Borrow's Desire to Become a 
Magistrate. Disappointment. The Bowring Dispute. 
The Fourth Century Greek Testament. The Old Rest- 
lessness. Friendship with the Hakes. Borrow at Home. 
His Love of Animals. Borrow as a Guest. His Strange 
Outbursts. Mr John Murray's Recollections . . 361 



CONTENTS xxiii 

CHAPTER XXIV 

LAVENGRO 

PAGE 

Slow Progress. Repeated Delays. A Despairing Printer. 
Borrow's Desire for Excellence. "I Must Throw It Up." 
Encouraging Letters. Lavengro Appears. Cause of the 
Delay. The Critics Disappointed. A Conspiracy. Borrow's 
Anger. His Attitude Towards Success. His Finer 
Qualities. His Literary Criticism. An Autobiography? 
Borrow's Methods. The Failure of Lavengro. The Cause. 
People Puzzled. Borrow's Style. Its Perfections and 
Imperfections ....... 387 

CHAPTER XXV 

SEPTEMBER 1 849 — FEBRUARY 1 854 

Borrow's Mother Removes to Oulton. Borrow's Sentiment 
About the Old House. FitzGerald. A Courageous Act. 
An Accomplished Swimmer. The Cornish Borrows. An 
Invitation. Borrow Visits His Kinsmen. The Old Home. 
Borrow's Emotion. Some Anecdotes. " Our Distin- 
guished Visitor." An Impression of Borrow. Tours in 
Cornwall. The Green Umbrella. The Rev. J. R. P. 
Berkeley's Recollections. "That Is a Man." The Pro- 
jected Book on Cornwall. London and Melancholia. 
"What Are My Prospects?" The Return Home . . 402 

CHAPTER XXVI 

MARCH 1854 — MAY 1 856 

A Summer Holiday. Wales Selected. Llangollen. Bangor. 
Snowdon Ascended. Borrow and "Old Hen." Ellen 
Thomas. Borrow's " Funny Welsh." Lost on Cader 
Idris. The Welsh Holiday and Success. Mrs George 
Borrow's Conspiracies. The Isle of Man. Carvel Books 
and Runic Inscriptions. The Manx People. A Projected 
Book. "A Missionary Out of Work." Anna Gurney. 
Borrow Flies from Her. Ale. A Universal Specific . 414 



xxiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXVII 

THE ROMANY RYE — 1854-1859 

PAGE 

Borrow as a Correspondent. Edward FitzGerald. The 
Romany Rye. A Publisher's Opinion. Borrow Annoyed. 
John Murray's Ultimatum. Borrow's Rebuke. A Convinc- 
ing Picture. The Appendix. Disapproval of the Critics. 
A Remarkable Review. The Autobiographical Value of 
The Romany Rye. Elwin's First Interview with Borrow 
The Effect of the Appendix. Borrow's Disappointment. 
Literary Projects. The Second Visit to Wales. Death of 
Old Mrs Borrow. Her Son's Grief. Tour in Scotland. 
Ireland. A Natural Genius. East Anglian Suspicion . 426 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

JULY 1859 — JANUARY 1 869 

The Sleeping Bard. Its Success. Borrow Reviews His Own 
Book. The Borrows Come to Live in London. Borrow's 
Egoism. His Charity. Miss Cobbe's Strictures. Borrow's 
Dislike of Dr Martineau. A Fantastic Fate. The 
Indulgence Due to Genius. Dr Hake's Impartiality. The 
Latham Episode. Coome End. "Are You Alone?" 
Mr Watts - Dunton. His Guile. Ambrose Gwinet. 
"Your Friend Knows Everything." The Bald- Faced Stag. 
Borrow as a Companion. Wild Wales. Its Reception. 
No Gypsies. The Spectator Criticism. Henrietta Marries. 
Ireland. Scotland. Mrs Borrow's Health. Her Sudden 
Illness. Her Death .... . 443 



CONTENTS xxv 

CHAPTER XXIX 

JANUARY 1869 — l88l. 

PAGE 

Borrow's Loneliness. Charles Godfrey Leland. An Impression. 
Romano Lavo-Lil. A Spent Force. Adverse Criticism. 
The " Calm Colossus." The Return to Oulton. Edward 
FitzGerald Again. Borrow's Vigour. Old Memories at 
Norwich. A Lonely Old Age. Borrow's Anger on Being 
Asked His Age. Makes His Will. He Dies Untended. 
Burial. Conclusion ...... 458 

List of Borrow's Works ..... 479 

Index ........ 481 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



George Borrow, from the original in the possession of John 

Murray, Esq. . . Frontispiece in Photogravure 

Trethinnick, the Home of the Borrows of 

Cornwall ..... To face page 4 

The Birthplace of George Borrow, East 

Dereham ...... 8 

William Taylor of Norwich „ 34 

George Borrow (1821), from a hitherto un- 
published painting by John Borrow, now 
in the possession of W. F. T. Jarrold, 
Esq. ...... 36 

Sir Richard Phillips, from the painting by 
James Saxon in the National Portrait 
Gallery ...... 42 

Mumber Lane (Mumper's Dingle) „ 64 

George Villiers, Fourth Earl of Claren- 
don (British Minister at Madrid, 1833- 
1839), from the engraving after Sir Francis 
Grant in the National Portrait Gallery . „ 170 



Oulton Cottage 



330 



Richard Ford, from the painting by Antonio 

Chatelain ..... „ 336 



xxviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

John Murray the Second, the " Glorious 
John" of Lavengro, from a portrait by 
H. W. Pickersgill, R.A., in the possession 
of Mr Murray .... To face page 338 

John Murray the Third, from a photograph 

by Maull and Fox .... „ 358 

The Rev. Andrew Brandram, from an old 
silhouette in the possession of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society . . „ 45° 



THE LIFE OF GEORGE BORROW 

CHAPTER I 

1678 — MAY 1 8 16 

(~\N 28th July 1783 was held the annual fair at 
^^ Menheniot, and for miles round the country folk 
flocked into the little Cornish village to join in the 
festivities. Among the throng was a strong contingent 
of young men from Liskeard, a town three miles distant, 
between whom and the youth of Menheniot an ancient 
feud existed. In days when the bruisers of England 
were national heroes, and a fight was a fitting incident 
of a day's revelry, the very presence of their rivals was 
a sufficient challenge to the chivalry of Menheniot, and 
a contest became inevitable. Some unrecorded incident 
was accepted by both parties as a sufficient cause for 
battle, and the two factions were soon fighting furiously 
midst collapsing stalls and tumbled merchandise. Women 
shrieked and fainted, men shouted and struck out grimly, 
whilst the stall-holders, in a frenzy of grief and despair, 
wrung their hands helplessly as they saw their goods being 
trampled to ruin beneath the feet of the contestants. 

Slowly the men of Liskeard were borne back by their 
more numerous opponents. They wavered, and just as 
defeat seemed inevitable, there arrived upon the scene 
a young man who, on seeing his townsmen in danger of 
being beaten, placed himself at their head and charged 
down upon the enemy, forcing them back by the im- 
petuosity of his attack. 

1 A 



2 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1783 

The new arrival was a man of fine physique, above the 
medium height and a magnificent fighter, who, later in life, 
was to achieve something of which a Mendoza or a 
Belcher might have been proud. He fought strongly and 
silently, inspiring his fellow townsmen by his example. 
The new leader had entirely turned the tide of battle, but 
just as the defeat of the men of Menjieniot seemed 
certain, a diversion was created by the arrival of the 
local constables. Now that their own villagers were 
on the verge of disaster, there was no longer any reason 
why they should remain in the background. They 
made a determined effort to arrest the leader of the 
Liskeard contingent, and were promptly knocked down 
by him. 

At that moment Mr Edmund Hambley, a much- 
respected maltster and the headborough of Liskeard, 
was attracted to the spot. Seeing in the person of 
the outrageous leader of the battle one of his own appren- 
tices, he stepped forward and threatened him with arrest. 
Goaded to desperation by the scornful attitude of the 
young man, the master-maltster laid hands upon him, and 
instantly shared the fate of the constables. With great 
courage and determination the headborough rose to his 
feet and again attempted to enforce his authority, but 
with no better result. When he picked himself up for a 
second time, it was to pass from the scene of his humilia- 
tion and, incidentally, out of the life of the young man who 
had defied his authority. 

The young apprentice was Thomas Borrow (born 
December 1758), eighth and posthumous child of John 
Borrow and of Mary his wife, of Trethinnick (the House 
on the Hill), in the neighbouring parish of St Cleer, two 
and a half miles north of Liskeard. At the age of fifteen, 
Thomas had begun to work upon his father's farm. At 
nineteen he was apprenticed to Edmund Hambley, 
maltster, of Liskeard, who five years later, in his official 
capacity as Constable of the Hundred of Liskeard, was to 



I.] THE BORROWS OF TRETHINNICK 3 

be publicly defied and twice knocked down by his 
insubordinate apprentice 

A trifling affair in itself, this village fracas was to have a 
lasting effect upon the career of Thomas Borrow. He was 
given to understand by his kinsmen that he need not look 
to them for sympathy or assistance in his wrongdoing. 
The Borrows of Trethinnick could trace back further than 
the parish registers record (1678). They were godly and 
law-abiding people, who had stood for the king and lost 
blood and harvests in his cause. If a son of the house 
disgrace himself, the responsibility must be his, not theirs. 
In the opinion of his family, Thomas Borrow had, by his 
vigorous conduct towards the headborough, who was also 
his master, placed himself outside the radius of their 
sympathy. At this period Trethinnick, a farm of some 
fifty acres in extent, was in the hands of Henry, Thomas' 
eldest brother, who since his mother's death, ten years 
before, had assumed the responsibility of launching his 
youngest brother upon the world. 

Fearful of the result of his assault on the headborough, 
Thomas Borrow left St Cleer with great suddenness, and 
for five months disappeared entirely. On 29th December 
he presented himself as a recruit before Captain Morshead, 1 
in command of a detachment of the Coldstream Guards, 
at that time stationed in the duchy. 

Thomas Borrow was no stranger to military training. 
For five years he had been in the Yeomanry Militia, which 
involved a short annual training. In the regimental 
records he is credited with five years " former service." 
He remained for eight years with the Coldstream Guards, 
most of the time being passed in London barracks. He 
had no money with which to purchase a commission, 
and his rise was slow and deliberate. At the end of nine 

1 Afterwards General Morshead and friend of the Duke of York. 
Captain Morshead, himself a Cornishman, is credited with doing 
everything in his power to dissuade Thomas Borrow from enlisting, 
but without result. 



4 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1793 

months he was promoted to the rank of corporal, and five 
years later he became a sergeant. In 1792 he was trans- 
ferred as Sergeant-Major to the First, or West Norfolk 
Regiment of Militia, whose headquarters were at East 
Dereham in Norfolk. 

It was just previous to this transfer that Sergeant 
Borrow had his famous encounter in Hyde Park with Big 
Ben Bryan, the champion of England ; he " whose skin 
was brown and dusky as that of a toad." It was a combat 
in which " even Wellington or Napoleon would have been 
heartily glad to cry for quarter ere the lapse of five 
minutes, and even the Blacksmith Tartar would, perhaps, 
have shrunk from the opponent with whom, after having 
had a dispute with him," Sergeant Borrow "engaged in 
single combat for one hour, at the end of which time the 
champions shook hands and retired, each having experi- 
enced quite enough of the other's prowess." l 

At East Dereham Thomas Borrow met Ann 2 Perfre- 
ment, 3 a strikingly handsome girl of twenty, whose dark 
eyes first flashed upon him from over the footlights. It 
was, and still is, the custom for small touring companies to 
engage their supernumeraries in the towns in which they 
were playing. The pretty daughter of Farmer Perfrement, 
whose farm lay about one and a half miles out of East 
Dereham, was one of those who took occasion to earn a 
few shillings for pin - money. The Perfrements were of 
Huguenot stock. On the revocation of the Edict of 

1 Lavengro, page 2. References to Borrow's works throughout 
this volume are to the Standard Edition, published by John Murray. 

2 Ann, the third of eight children born to Samuel Perfrement and 
Mary his wife, 23rd January 1772. 

3 Locally, the name is pronounced "/"arfrement." This is quite 
in accordance with the Norfolk dialect, which changes "e" into "a." 
Thus "Ernest" becomes "Arnest" ; "Earlham," "Arlham"; " Erp- 
ingham," "Arpingham," and so on. In Norfolk there are grave 
peculiarities of pronunciation, which have caused many a stranger to 
wish that he had never enquired his way, so puzzling are the replies 
hurled at him in an incomprehensible vernacular. 



i.] WANDERING WITH THE REGIMENT 5 

Nantes, their ancestors had fled from their native town of 
Caen and taken refuge in East Anglia, there to enjoy the 
liberty of conscience denied them in their beloved Nor- 
mandy. Thomas Borrow made the acquaintance of the 
young probationer, and promptly settled any aspirations 
that she may have had towards the stage by marrying her. 
The wedding took place on i ith February 1793 at East 
Dereham church, best known as the resting-place of the 
poet Cowper, Ann being twenty-one and Thomas thirty- 
four years of age. 

For the next seven years Thomas and Ann Borrow 
moved about with the West Norfolk Militia, which now 
marched off into Essex, a few months later doubling back 
again into Norfolk. Then it dived into Kent and for a 
time hovered about the Cinque Ports, Thomas Borrow in the 
meantime being promoted to the rank of quarter-master 
(27th May 1795). It was not until he had completed 
fourteen years of service that he received a commission. 
On 27th February 1798 he became Adjutant in the same 
regiment, a promotion that carried with it a captain's rank. 

Whilst at Sandgate Mrs Borrow became acquainted 
with John Murray, the son of the founder of the publishing 
house from which, forty-four years later, were to be 
published the books of her second son, then unborn. 
The widow of John Murray the First had married in 
1795 Lieutenant Henry Paget of the West Norfolk 
Militia. Years later (27th March 1843) George Borrow 
wrote to John Murray, Junr., third of the line : 

" I am at present in Norwich with my mother, who has 
been ill, but is now, thank God, recovering fast. She begs 
leave to send her kind remembrances to Mr Murray. She 
knew him at Sandgate in Kent forty-six years ago, when 
he came to see his mother, Mrs P[aget]. She was also 
acquainted with his sister, Miss Jane Murray, 1 who used 
to ride on horseback with her on the Downs. She says 
Captain [sic] Paget once cooked a dinner for Mrs P. and 

1 Married the Rev. Wni. Holland, rector of Walmer and afterwards 
rector of Brasted, Kent. 



6 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1803 

herself, and sat down to table with his cook's apron on. 
Is not this funny? Does it not 'beat the Union,' as the 
Yankees say ? " 

The first child of the marriage was born in 1800, it is 
not known exactly when or where. This was John, " the 
brother some three years older than myself," whose 
beauty in infancy was so great "that people, especially 
those of the poorer classes, would follow the nurse 
who carried him about in order to look at and bless his 
lovely face," * with its rosy cheeks and smiling, blue-eyed 
innocence. On one occasion even, an attempt was made 
to snatch him from the arms of his nurse as she was about 
to enter a coach. The parents became a prey to anxiety ; 
for the child seems to have possessed many endearing 
qualities as well as good looks. He was quick and 
clever, and when the time came for instruction, "he 
mastered his letters in a few hours, and in a day or two 
could decipher the names of people on the doors of houses 
and over the shop windows." 2 His cleverness increased as 
he grew up, and later he seems to have become, in the 
mind of Captain Borrow at least, a standard by which 
to measure the shortcomings of his younger son George, 
whom he never was able to understand. 

For the next three years, 1800-3, the regiment con- 
tinued to hover about the home counties. The Peace of 
Amiens released many of the untried warriors, who had 
enlisted " until the peace," their adjutant having to find 
new recruits to fill up the gaps. War broke out again the 
following year (18th May 1803), an d tne Great Terror 
assumed a phase so critical as to subdue almost entirely all 
thought of party strife. On 5th July Ann Borrow gave 
birth to a second son, in the house of her father. At the 
time Captain Borrow was hunting for recruits in other 
parts of Norfolk, in order to send them to Colchester, 
where the regiment was stationed. In due course the 

1 Lavengro, page 5. - Lavcngro, page 5. 



I.] A PROPHETS CHILD 7 

child was christened George Henry 1 at the church of East 
Dereham, and, within a few weeks of his birth, he received 
his first experience of the vicissitudes of a soldier's life, by 
accompanying his father, mother, and brother to Colchester 
to rejoin the regiment. The whole infancy of George Borrow 
was spent in the same trailing restlessness. Napoleon 
was alive and at large, and the West Norfolks seemed 
doomed eternally to march and countermarch in the 
threatened area, Sussex, Kent, Essex. 

No efforts appear to have been made to steal the 
younger brother, although " people were in the habit of 
standing still to look at me, ay, more than at my brother." 2 
Unlike John in about everything that one child could 
be unlike another, George was a gloomy, introspective 
creature who considerably puzzled his parents. He 
compares himself to " a deep, dark lagoon, shaded by black 
pines, cypresses and yews," 3 beside which he once paused 
to contemplate " a beautiful stream . . . sparkling in the 
sunshine, and . . . tumbling merrily into cascades," 4 
which he likened to his brother. 

Slow of comprehension, almost dull-witted, shy of 
society, sometimes bursting into tears when spoken to, 
George became " a lover of nooks and retired corners," 5 
where he would sit for hours at a time a prey to " a peculiar 
heaviness . . . and at times ... a strange sensation of 
fear, which occasionally amounted to horror," 6 for which 
there was no apparent cause. In time he grew to be as 
much disliked as his brother was admired. On one 
occasion an old Jew pedlar, attracted by the latent intelli- 
gence in the smouldering eyes of the silent child, who 
ignored his questions and continued tracing in the dust 
with his fingers curious lines, pronounced him " a prophet's 

1 George in honour of the King, it is said, and Henry after his 
father's eldest brother. 

2 Lavengro, page 6. 3 Lavengro, page 6. 
4 Lavengro, page 6. 6 Lavengro, page 7. 
G Lavengro, page 7. 



8 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1809 

child." This carried to the mother's heart a quiet comfort, 
and reawakened in her hope for the future of her second 
son. 

The early childhood of George Borrow was spent in 
stirring times. Without, there was the menace of 
Napoleon's invasion ; within, every effort was being made 
to meet and repel it. Dumouriez was preparing his great 
scheme of defence ; Captain Thomas Borrow was doing 
his utmost to collect and drill men to help in carrying it 
into effect. Sometimes the family were in lodgings ; but 
more frequently in barracks, for reasons of economy. 
Once, at least, they lived under canvas. 

The strange and puzzling child continued to impress 
his parents in a manner well-calculated to alarm them. 
One day, with a cry of delight, he seized a viper that, 
" like a line of golden light," was moving across the lane in 
which he was playing. Whilst making no effort to harm 
the child, who held and regarded it with awe and admira- 
tion, the reptile showed its displeasure towards John, his 
brother, by hissing and raising its head as if to strike. 
This happened when George was between two and three 
years of age. At about the same period he ate largely of 
some poisonous berries, which resulted in " strong convul- 
sions," lasting for several hours. He seems to have been 
a source of constant anxiety to his parents, who were 
utterly unable to understand the strange and gloomy child 
who had been vouchsafed to them by the inscrutable decree 
of providence. 

In the middle of the year 1809 the regiment returned 
from Essex to Norfolk, marching first to Norwich and 
thence to other towns in the county. Captain Borrow 
and his family took up their quarters once more at 
Dereham. George was now six years old, acutely observant 
of the things that interested him, but reluctant to proceed 
with studies which, in his eyes, seemed to have nothing to 
recommend them. Books possessed no attraction for him, 
although he knew his alphabet and could even read 



i] "PRETTY, QUIET M 9 

imperfectly. The acquirement of book-learning he found 
a dull and dolorous business, to which he was driven 
only by the threats or entreaties of his parents, who 
showed some concern lest he should become an " arrant 
dunce." 

The intelligence that the old Jew pedlar had discovered 
still lay dormant, as if unwilling to manifest itself. The 
boy loved best " to look upon the heavens, and to bask in 
the rays of the sun, or to sit beneath hedgerows and listen 
to the chirping of the birds, indulging the while in musing 
and meditation." x Meanwhile John was earning golden 
opinions for the astonishing progress he continued to make 
at school, unconsciously throwing into bolder relief the 
apparent dullness of his younger brother. George, however, 
was as active mentally as the elder. The one was study- 
ing men, the other books. George was absorbing impres- 
sions of the things around him : of the quaint old Norfolk 
town, its " clean but narrow streets branching out from thy 
modest market-place, with thine old-fashioned houses, with 
here and there a roof of venerable thatch " ; of that 
exquisite old gentlewoman Lady Fenn, 2 as she passed to 
and from her mansion upon some errand of bounty or of 
mercy, " leaning on her gold-headed cane, whilst the sleek 
old footman walked at a respectful distance behind." 3 On 
Sundays, from the black leather-covered seat in the church- 
pew, he would contemplate with large-eyed wonder the 
rector and James Philo his clerk, "as they read their 
respective portions of the venerable liturgy," sometimes 
being lulled to sleep by the monotonous drone of their 
voices. 

On fine Sundays there was the evening walk " with my 
mother and brother — a quiet, sober walk, during which I 
would not break into a run, even to chase a butterfly, or 
yet more a honey-bee, being fully convinced of the dread 

1 Lavengro, page 16. 

2 The widow of Sir John Fenn, editor of the Pctston Tetters. 

3 Lavengro, page 15. 



10 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1809 

importance of the day which God had hallowed. And how 
glad I was when I had got over the Sabbath day without 
having done anything to profane it. And how soundly I 
slept on the Sabbath night after the toil of being very good 
throughout the day." 1 

During these early years there was being photographed 
upon the brain of George Borrow a series of impressions 
which, to the end of his life, remained as vivid as at 
the moment they were absorbed. What appeared to those 
around him as dull-witted stupidity was, in reality, mental 
surfeit. His mind was occupied with other things than 
books, things that it eagerly took cognisance of, strove to 
understand and was never to forget. 2 Hitherto he had 
taken " no pleasure in books . . . and bade fair to be as 
arrant a dunce as ever brought the blush of shame into the 
cheeks of anxious and affectionate parents." 3 His mind 
was not ready for them. When the time came there was 
no question of dullness : he proved an eager and earnest 
student. 

One day an intimate friend of Mrs Borrow's, who was 
also godmother to John, brought with her a present of a 
book for each of the two boys, a history of England for the 
elder and for the younger Robinson Crusoe. Instantly 
George became absorbed. 

" The true chord had now been touched. . . . Weeks 
succeeded weeks, months followed months, and the 
wondrous volume was my only study and principal source 
of amusement. For hours together I would sit poring 
over a page till I had become acquainted with the 
import of every line. My progress, slow enough at first, 

1 Lavengro, pages 398-9. 

2 " Many years have not passed over my head, yet during those 
which I can call to remembrance, how many things have I seen 
flourish, pass away, and become forgotten, except by myself, who, in 
spite of all my endeavours, never can forget anything." — Lavengro, 
page 166. 

3 Lavengro, page 16. 



i.] LIFE AT NORMAN CROSS 11 

became by degrees more rapid, till at last, under a 
' shoulder of mutton sail,' I found myself cantering before a 
steady breeze over an ocean of enchantment, so well 
pleased with my voyage that I cared not how long it 
might be ere it reached its termination. And it was in this 
manner that I first took to the paths of knowledge." 1 

In the spring of 1810 the regiment was ordered to 
Norman Cross, in Huntingdonshire, situated at the 
junction of the Peterborough and Great North Roads. At 
this spot the Government had caused to be erected in 1796 
an extensive prison, covering forty acres of ground, in 
which to confine some of the prisoners made during the 
Napoleonic wars. There were sixteen large buildings 
roofed with red tiles. Each group of four was surrounded 
by a palisade, whilst another palisade " lofty and of 
prodigious strength " surrounded the whole. At the time 
when the West Norfolk Militia arrived there were some 
six thousand prisoners, who, with their guards, constituted 
a considerable-sized township. From time to time fresh 
batches of captives arrived amid a storm of cheers and 
cries of " Vive L'Empereur ! " These were the only 
incidents in the day's monotony, save when some prisoner 
strove to evade the hospitality of King George, and was 
shot for his ingratitude. 

Captain Borrow rejoined his regiment at Norman 
Cross, leaving his family to follow a few days later. At 
the time the country round Peterborough was under water 
owing to the recent heavy rains, and at one portion of the 
journey the whole party had to embark in a species of punt, 
which was towed by horses " up to the knees in water, and, 
on coming to blind pools and 'greedy depths,' were not 
unfrequently swimming." 2 But they were all old cam- 
paigners and accepted such adventures as incidents of 
a soldier's life. 

At Norman Cross George made the acquaintance of 
an old snake-catcher and herbalist, a circumstance which, 

1 Lave?igro t pages 19-20. " Lavengro, page 22. 



12 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1810 

insignificant in itself, was to exercise a considerable 
influence over his whole life. Frequently this curious 
pair were to be seen tramping the countryside together ; 
a tall, quaint figure with fur cap and gaiters carrying 
a leathern bag of wriggling venom, and an eager child 
with eyes that now burned with interest and intelligence 
— and the talk of the two was the lore of the viper. 
When the snake-catcher passed out of the life of his 
young disciple, he left behind him as a present a tame 
and fangless viper, which George often carried with him 
on his walks. It was this well-meaning and inoffensive 
viper that turned aside the wrath of Gypsy Smith, 1 and 
awakened in his heart a superstitious awe and veneration 
for the child, the Sap-engro, who might be a goblin, but 
who certainly would make a most admirable " clergyman 
and God Almighty," who read from a book that contained 
the kind of prayers particularly to his taste — perhaps the 
greatest encomium ever bestowed upon the immortal 
Robinson Crusoe. Thus it came about that George 
Borrow was proclaimed brother to the gypsy's son 
Ambrose, 2 who as Jasper Petulengro figures so largely 
in Lavengro and The Romany Rye, and is credited with 

1 The gypsies "have a double nomenclature, each tribe or family 
having a public and private name, one by which they are known to the 
Gentiles, and another to themselves alone. . . . There are only two 
names of trades which have been adopted by English gypsies as 
proper names, Cooper and Smith : these names are expressed in the 
English gypsy dialect by Vardo-mescro and Petulengro (Romano Lavo- 
Lil, page 185). Thus the Smiths are known among themselves as the 
Petulengros. Petul, a horse shoe, and engro a "masculine affix 
used in the formation of figurative names." Thus Boshomengro (a 
fiddler) comes from Bosh = a fiddle, Cooromengro (a soldier, a 
pugilist) from Coor = to fight. 

2 The Rev. Wentworth Webster heard narrated at a provincial 
Bible Society's meeting that when Borrow first called at Earl Street 
'he said that he had been stolen by gypsies in his boyhood, had 
passed several years with them, but had been recognised at a fair in 
Norfolk and brought home to his family by his uncle." There is, how- 
ever, nothing to confirm this story. 



i.] HOW TO ENSURE SUCCESS 13 

that exquisitely phrased pagan glorification of mere 
existence : 

" Life is sweet, brother. . . . There's night and day, 
brother, both sweet things ; sun, moon and stars, brother, 
all sweet things ; there's likewise the wind on the 
heath. Life is very sweet, brother ; who would wish to 
die?" 1 

The Borrows were nomads, permitted by God and 
the king to tarry not over long in any one place. In 
the following July (1811) the West Norfolks proceeded 
to Colchester via Norfolk, after fifteen months of prison 
duty and straw-plait destroying. 2 Captain Borrow 
betook himself to East Dereham again to seek for likely 
recruits. In the meantime George made his first 
acquaintance with that universal specific for success 
in life, for correctness of conduct, for soundness of prin- 
ciples — Lilly's Latin Grammar, which to learn by heart 
was to acquire a virtue that defied evil. The good old 
pedagogue who advocated Lilly's Latin Grammar as 
a remedy for all ills, would have traced George Borrow's 
eventual success in life entirely to the fact that within 
three years of the date that the solemn exhortation was 
pronounced the boy had learned Lilly by heart, although 
without in the least degree comprehending him. 

Early in 1812 the regiment turned its head north, 
and by slow degrees, with occasional counter marchings, 
continued to progress towards Edinburgh, which was 
reached thirteen months later (6th April 18 13). "With 
drums beating, colours flying, and a long train of baggage- 
waggons behind," 3 the West Norfolk Militia wound its 
way up the hill to the Castle, the adjutant's family in 

1 Lavengro, page 164. 

2 The prisoners occupied much of their time in straw-plait 
making ; but the quality of their work was so much superior to 
that of the English that it was forbidden, and consequently destroyed 
when found. 

3 Lavengro, page 45. 



14 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1813 

a chaise forming part of the procession. There in 
barracks the regiment might rest itself after long and 
weary marches, and the two young sons of the adjutant 
be permitted to continue their studies at the High School, 
without the probability that the morrow would see them 
on the road to somewhere else. 

Whilst at Edinburgh George met with his first experi- 
ence of racial feeling, which, under uncongenial conditions, 
develops into race-hatred. He discovered that one 
English boy, when faced by a throng of young Scots 
patriots, had best be silent as to the virtues of his own 
race. He joined in and enjoyed the fights between the 
" Auld and the New Toon," and incidentally acquired 
a Scots accent that somewhat alarmed his loyal father, 
who had named him after the Hanoverian Georges. 
Proving himself a good fighter, he earned the praise of 
his Scots acquaintances, and a general invitation to assist 
them in their " bickers " with " thae New Toon black- 
guards." 

He loved to climb and clamber over the rocks, peeping 
into " all manner of strange crypts, crannies, and recesses, 
where owls nestled and the weasel brought forth her 
young." He would go out on all-day excursions, enjoying 
the thrills of clambering up to what appeared to be 
inaccessible ledges, until eventually he became an expert 
cragsman. One day he came upon David Haggart x 
sitting on the extreme verge of a precipice, " thinking of 
Willie Wallace." 

For fifteen months the regiment remained at Edin- 
burgh. In the spring of 1814 the waning star of Napoleon 
had, to all appearances, set, and he was on his way to 

1 David Haggart, born 24th June 1801, was an instinctive 
criminal, who, at Leith Races, in 1813, enlisted, whilst drunk, as 
a drummer in the West Norfolks. Eventually he obtained his 
discharge and continued on his career of crime and prison-breaking, 
among other things murdering a policeman and a gaoler, until, on 
18th July 1821, he was hanged at Edinburgh. 



i] MUSTERED OUT 15 

his miniature kingdom, the Isle of Elba (28th April). 
Europe commenced to disband its huge armies, Great 
Britain among the rest. On 21st June the West Norfolks 
received orders to proceed to Norwich by ship via Leith 
and Great Yarmouth. The Government, relieved of all 
apprehension of an invasion, had time to think of the 
personal comfort of the country's defenders. With marked 
consideration, the orders provided that those who wished 
might march instead of embarking on the sea. Accord- 
ingly Captain Borrow and his family chose the land route. 
Arrived at Norwich, the regiment was formally disbanded 
amid great festivity. The officers, at the Maid's Head, 
the queen of East Anglian inns, and the men in the 
spacious market-place, drank to the king's health and 
peace. The regiment was formally mustered out on 
19th July. 

The Borrows took up their quarters at the Crown and 
Angel in St Stephen's Street, a thoroughfare that 
connects the main roads from Ipswich and Newmarket 
with the city. George, now eleven years old, had an 
opportunity of continuing his education at the Norwich 
Grammar School, whilst his brother proceeded to study 
drawing and painting with a "little dark man with 
. . . brown coat . . . and top-boots, whose name will 
one day be considered the chief ornament of the old 
town," x and whose works are to " rank among the 
proudest pictures of England," — the Norwich painter, 
"Old Crome." 2 

Whilst the two boys were thus occupied, Louis XVIII. 
was endeavouring to reorder his kingdom, and on a little 
island in the Mediterranean, Napoleon was preparing a 
bombshell that was to shatter the peace of Europe and 

1 Lavengro, page 138. 

2 John Crome (1 768-1 821), landscape painter. Apprenticed 1783 
as sign-painter ; introduced into Norwich the art of graining ; founded 
the Norwich School of Painting ; first exhibited at the Royal 
Academy 1806. 



16 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1815 

send Captain Borrow hurrying hither and thither in 
search of the men who, a few months before, had left 
the colours, convinced that a generation of peace was 
before them. 

On 1st March Napoleon was at Cannes ; eighteen days 
later Louis XVI II. fled from Paris. Everywhere there 
were feverish preparations for war. John Borrow threw 
aside pencil and brush and was gazetted ensign in his 
father's regiment (29th May). Europe united against 
the unexpected and astonishing danger. By the time 
Captain Borrow had finished his task, however, the crisis 
was past, Waterloo had been won and Napoleon was on 
his way to St Helena. 

By a happy inspiration it was decided to send the 
West Norfolks to Ireland, where "disturbances were 
apprehended" and private stills flourished. On 31st 
August the regiment, some eight hundred strong, sailed in 
two vessels from Harwich for Cork, the passage occupying 
eight days. The ship that carried the Borrows was old and 
crazy, constantly missing stays and shipping seas, until it 
seemed that only by a miracle she escaped " from being 
dashed upon the foreland." 

After a few days' rest at Cork, the " city of contradic- 
tions," where wealth and filth jostled one another in the 
public highways and " boisterous shouts of laughter were 
heard on every side," the regiment marched off in two 
divisions for Clonmel in Tipperary. Walking beside 
his father, who was in command of the second division, 
and holding on to his stirrup-leather, George found 
a new country opening out before him. On one 
occasion, as they were passing through a village of low 
huts, " that seemed to be inhabited solely by women 
and children," he went up to an old beldam who sat 
spinning at the door of one of the hovels and asked for 
some water. She " appeared to consider for a moment, 
then tottering into her hut, presently reappeared with a 
small pipkin of milk, which she offered . . . with a 



l] WITH THE WEST NORFOLKS IN IRELAND 17 

trembling hand." When the lad tendered payment she 
declined the money, and patted his face, murmuring some 
unintelligible words. Obviously there was nothing in the 
boy's nature now that appeared strange to simple-minded 
folk. Probably the intercourse with other boys at Edin- 
burgh and Norwich had been beneficial in its effect. 
Keenly interested in everything around him, George 
fell to speculating as to whether he could learn Irish and 
speak to the people in their own tongue. 

At Clonmel the Borrows lodged with an Orangeman, 
who had run out of his house as the Adjutant rode by at 
the head of his men, and proceeded to welcome him with 
flowery volubility. On the advice of his host Captain 
Borrow sent George to a Protestant school, where he 
met the Irish boy Murtagh, who figures so largely in 
Lavengro and The Romany Rye. Murtagh settled any 
doubts that Borrow may ^have had as to his ability 
to acquire Erse, by teaching it to him in exchange for a 
pack of cards. 

On 23rd December 18 15 Ensign John Thomas Borrow 
was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, he being then in 
his sixteenth year. In the following January, after only 
a few months' stay, the West Norfolks were moved 
on to Templemore. It was here that George learned 
to ride, and that without a saddle, and had awakened 
in him that " passion for the equine race " that never left 
him. 1 

The nine months spent in Ireland left an indelible 
mark upon Borrow's imagination. In later life he 
repeatedly referred to his knowledge of the country, its 
people, and their language. In overcoming the difficulties 

1 Borrow was always a magnificent horseman. " Vaya ! how you 
ride ! It is dangerous to be in your way !" said the Archbishop of 
Toledo to him years later. In The Bible in Spain he wrote that he had 
"been accustomed from . . . childhood to ride without a saddle." 
The Rev. Wentworth Webster states that in Madrid "he used to 
ride with a Russian skin for a saddle and without stirrups" 

B 



18 VILLAGE FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES [1816 

of Erse, he had opened up for himself a larger prospect 
than was to be enjoyed by a traveller whose first word of 
greeting or enquiry is uttered in a hated tongue. 

On nth May 1816 the West Norfolk Militia was back 
again at Norwich. Peace was now finally restored to 
Europe, and every nation was far too impoverished, both 
as regards men and money, to nourish any schemes of 
aggression. Napoleon was safe at St Helena, under the 
eye of that instinctive gaoler, Sir Hudson Lowe. The 
army had completed its work and was being disbanded 
with all possible speed. The turn of the West Norfolk 
Militia came on 17th June, when they were formally 
mustered out for the second time within two years. 
Three years later their Adjutant was retired upon full-pay 
— eight shillings a day. 



CHAPTER II 

MAY l8l6 — MARCH 1 824 

T?OR the first time since his marriage, Captain Borrow 
■*■ found himself at liberty to settle down and educate his 
sons. He had spent much of his life in Norfolk, and he 
decided to remain there and make Norwich his home. It 
was a quiet and beautiful old-world city : healthy, 
picturesque, ancient, and, above all, possessed of a Grammar 
School, where George could try and gather together the 
stray threads of education that he had acquired at various 
times and in various dialects. It was an ideal city for a 
warrior to take his rest in ; but probably what counted 
most with Captain Borrow was the Grammar School — 
more than the Norman Cathedral, the grim old Castle that 
stands guardian-like upon its mound, the fact of its being a 
garrison town, or even the traditions that surrounded the 
place. He had two sons who must be appropriately sent 
out into the world, and Norwich offered facilities for educat- 
ing both. He accordingly took a small house in Willow 
Lane, to which access was obtained by a covered passage 
then called King's, but now Borrow's Court. 

During the most nomadic portion of his life, when, with 
discouraging rapidity, he was moving from place to place, 
Captain Borrow never for one moment seems to have 
forgotten his obligations as a father. Whenever he had 
been quartered in a town for a few months, he had sought 
out a school to which to send John and George, notably at 
Huddersfield and Sheffield. Had he known it, these 

19 



20 NORWICH DAYS [1816 

precautions were unnecessary ; for he had two sons who 
were of what may be called the self- educating type: 
John, by virtue of the quickness of his parts; George, 
on account of the strangeness of his interests and 
his thirst for a knowledge of men and the tongues 
in which they communicate to each other their ideas. 
It would be impossible for an unconventional linguist, 
such as George Borrow was by instinct, to remain 
uneducated, and it was equally impossible to educate 
him. 

Quite unaware of the trend of his younger son's genius, 
Captain Borrow obtained for him a free-scholarship at the 
Grammar School, then under the headmastership of the 
Rev. Edward Valpy, B.D., whose principal claims to fame 
are his severity, his having flogged the conqueror of the 
" Flaming Tinman," and his destruction of the School 
Records of Admission, which dated back to the Sixteenth 
Century. Among Borrow's contemporaries at the 
Grammar School were " Rajah " Brooke of Sarawak (for 
whose achievements he in after life expressed a profound 
admiration), Sir Archdale Wilson of Delhi, Colonel Charles 
Stoddart, Dr James Martineau, and Thomas Borrow 
Burcham, the London Magistrate. 

Borrow was now thirteen, and, it would appear, as 
determined as ever to evade as much as possible academic 
learning. He was " far from an industrious boy, fond of 
idling, and discovered no symptoms by his progress either 
in Latin or Greek of that philology, so prominent a feature 
of his last work {Lavengro)." x Borrow was an idler merely 
because his work was uncongenial to him. " Mere idleness 
is the most disagreeable state of existence, and both mind 
and body are continually making efforts to escape from it," 
he wrote in later years concerning this period. He wanted 
an object in life, an occupation that would prove not wholly 
uncongenial. That he should dislike the routine of school 

1 Letter from "A School-fellow of Lavengro" in The Britannia, 
26th April 1851. 



II.] A YOUNG POLYGLOT GENTLEMAN 21 

life was not unnatural ; for he had lived quite free from 
those conventional restraints to which other boys of his age 
had always been accustomed. Occupation of some sort he 
must have, if only to keep at a distance that insistent 
melancholy that seems to have been for ever hovering 
about him, and the tempter whispered " Languages." 1 
One day chance led him to a bookstall whereon lay a 
polyglot dictionary, " which pretended to be an easy guide 
to the acquirement of French, Italian, Low Dutch, and 
English." He took the two first, and when he had gleaned 
from the old volume all it had to teach him, he longed for 
a master. Him he found in the person of an old French 
emigre priest, 2 a study in snuff-colour and drab with a frill 
of dubious whiteness, who attended to the accents of a 
number of boarding-school young ladies. The progress of 
his pupil so much pleased the old priest that " after six 
months' tuition, the master would sometimes, on his 
occasional absences to teach in the country, request his so 
forward pupil to attend for him his home scholars." 3 It 
was M. D'Eterville who uttered the second recorded 
prophecy concerning George Borrow : " Vous serez un 
jour un grand philologue, mon cher," he remarked, and 
heard that his pupil nourished aspirations towards other 
things than mere philology. 

In the study of French, Spanish, and Italian, Borrow 

1 " It is probable, that had I been launched about this time into 
some agreeable career, that of arms, for example, for which, being the 
son of a soldier, I had, as was natural, a sort of penchant, I might 
have thought nothing more of the acquisition of tongues of any kind ; 
but, having nothing to do, I followed the only course suited to my 
genius which appeared open to me." — Lavengro, page 89. 

2 The Rev. Thomas D'Eterville, M.A., "Poor Old Detterville," as 
the Grammar School boys called him, of Caen University, who 
arrived at Norwich in 1793. He acquired a small fortune by teaching 
languages. There were rumours that he was engaged in the contra- 
band trade, an occupation more likely to bring fortune than teaching 
languages. 

3 Letter from "A School-fellow of Lavengro" in The Britannia, 
26th April 185 1. 



22 NORWICH DAYS [1818 

spent many hours that other boys would have devoted 
to pleasure ; yet he was by no means a student only. 
He found time to fish and to shoot, using a con- 
demned, honey - combed musket that bore the date 
of 1746. His fishing was done in the river Yare, 
which flowed through the estate of John Joseph Gurney, 
the Quaker -banker of Earlham Hall, two miles out 
of Norwich. It was here that he was reproached by 
the voice, "clear and sonorous as a bell," of the banker 
himself, not for trespassing, but " for pulling all those fish 
out of the water, and leaving them to gasp in the sun." 

At Harford Bridge, some two miles along the Ipswich 
Road, lived "the terrible Thurtell," a patron and 
companion of "the bruisers of England," who taught 
Borrow to box, and who ultimately ended his own 
inglorious career by being hanged (9th January 1824) 
for the murder of Mr Weare, and incidentally figuring 
in De Quincey's " On Murder Considered As One of the 
Fine Arts." It was through "the king of flash-men" that 
Borrow saw his first prize-fight at Eaton, near Norwich. 

The passion for horses that came suddenly to Borrow 
with his first ride upon the cob in Ireland had con- 
tinued to grow. He had an opportunity of gratifying it 
at the Norwich Horse Fair, held each Easter under the 
shadow of the Castle, and famous throughout the 
country. 1 It was here, in 18 18, that Borrow encountered 
again Ambrose Petulengro, an event that was to 
exercise a considerable influence upon his life. Mr 
Petulengro had become the head of his tribe, his father 
and mother having been transported for passing bad 
money. He was now a man, with a wife, a child, and 
also a mother-in-law, who took a violent dislike to the 

1 It was here, in 1827, that he saw the world's greatest trotter, 
Marshland Shales, and in common with other lovers of horses lifted 
his hat to salute " the wondrous horse, the fast trotter, the best 
in mother England." In Lavengro Borrow antedated this event by 
some nine years. 



ii.] THE INFLUENCE OF MR PETULENGRO 23 

tall, fair-haired gorgio. Borrow's life was much broadened 
by his intercourse with Mr Petulengro. He was often 
at the gypsy encampment on Mousehold, a heath just 
outside Norwich, where, under the tuition of his host, 
he learned the Romany tongue with such rapidity as 
to astonish his instructor and earn for him among the 
gypsies the name of " Lav-engro," word-fellow or word- 
master. He also boxed with the godlike Tawno Chikno, 
who in turn pronounced him worthy to bear the name 
" Cooro-mengro," fist-fellow or fist-master. He frequently 
accompanied Mr Petulengro to neighbouring fairs and 
markets, riding one of the gypsy's horses. At other times 
the two would roam over the gorse-covered Mousehold, 
discoursing largely about things Romany. 

The departure of Mr Petulengro and his retinue from 
Norwich threw Borrow back once more upon his linguistic 
studies, his fishing, his shooting, and his smouldering dis- 
content at the constraints of school life. It was probably 
an endeavour on Borrow's part to make himself more 
like his gypsy friends that prompted him to stain his 
face with walnut juice, drawing from the Rev. Edward 
Valpy the question : " Borrow, are you suffering from 
jaundice, or is it only dirt ? " The gypsies were not the 
only vagabonds of Borrow's acquaintance at this period. 
There were the Italian peripatetic vendors of weather- 
glasses, who had their headquarters at Norwich. In after 
years he met again more than one of these merchants. 
They were always glad to see him and revive old 
memories of the Norwich days. 

About this time he saved a boy from drowning in 
the Yare. 1 It may be this act with which he generously 
credits his brother John when he says — 

" I have known him dash from a steep bank into a stream 
in his full dress, and pull out a man who was drowning ; 

1 Manuscript autobiographical notes supplied by Borrow to Mr 
John Longe, 1862. 



24 NORWICH DAYS [1818 

yet there were twenty others bathing in the water, who 
might have saved him by putting out a hand, without in- 
convenience to themselves, which, however, they did not 
do, but stared with stupid surprise at the drowning one's 
struggles." x 



From the first Borrow had shown a strong distaste 
for the humdrum routine of school life. In a thousand 
ways he was different from his fellows. He had been 
accustomed to meet strange and, to him, deeply interesting 
people. Now he was bidden adopt a course of life against 
which his whole nature rebelled. It was impossible. He 
missed the atmosphere of vagabondage that had inspired 
and stimulated his early boyhood. 

The crisis came at last. There was only one way 
to avoid the awkward and distasteful destiny that was 
being forced upon him. He entered into a conspiracy 
with three school-fellows, all younger than himself, to 
make a dash for a life that should offer wider opportunities 
to their adventurous natures. The plan was to tramp 
to Great Yarmouth and there excavate on the seashore 
caves for their habitation. From these headquarters 
they would make foraging expeditions, and live on what 
they could extract from the surrounding country, either 
by force or by the terror that they inspired. One 
morning the four started on their twenty-mile trudge 
to the sea ; but, when only a few miles out, one of their 
number became fearful and turned back. 

Encouraged by their leader, the others continued on 
their way. The father of the other two boys appears 
to have got wind of the project and posted after them 
in a chaise. He came up with them at Acle, about 
eleven miles from Norwich. When they were first seen, 
Borrow was striving to hearten his fellow buccaneers, 
who were tired and dispirited after their long walk. 
The three were unceremoniously bundled into the chaise 

1 Lavengro, page 134. 



il] AN ADVENTURE 25 

and returned to their homes and, subsequently, to the 
wrath of the Rev. Edward Valpy. 1 

The names of the three confederates were John 
Dalrymple (whose heart failed him) and Theodosius and 
Francis Purland, sons of a Norwich chemist. The Purlands 
are credited with robbing " the paternal till," while 
Dalrymple confined himself to the less compromising 
duty of "gathering horse-pistols and potatoes." If the 
boys robbed their father's till, why did they beg? In the 
ballad entitled The Wandering Children and the Benevolent 
Gentleman, Borrow depicts the " eldest child " as begging 
for charity for these hungry children, who have had " no 
breakfast, save the haws." This does not seem to 
suggest that the boys were in the possession of money. 
Again, it was the father of one of their schoolfellows who 
was responsible for their capture, according to Dr Knapp, 
by asking them to dinner whilst he despatched a messenger 
to the Rev. Edward Valpy. The story of Borrow's being 
" horsed " on Dr Martineau's back is apocryphal. Martineau 
himself denied it. 2 

There is no record of how Captain Borrow received 
the news of his younger son's breach of discipline. It 
probably reminded him that the boy was now fifteen 
and it was time to think about his future. The old 
soldier was puzzled. Not only had his second son shown 
a great partiality for acquiring Continental tongues, but 

1 This account is taken from a letter by "A Schoolfellow of 
Lavengro" in The Britannia, 26th April 185 1. 

2 In a letter to Borrow, dated 15th October 1862, John Longe, 
J.P., of Spixworth Park, Norwich, in acknowledging some biographi- 
cal particulars that Borrow had sent him for inclusion in Burton's 
Antiquities of the Royal School of Norwich, wrote : — 

"You have omitted an important and characteristic anecdote of 
your early days (fifteen years of age). When at school you, with 
Theodosius and Francis W. Purland, absented yourself from home 
and school and took up your abode in a certain ' Robber's Cave ' at 
Acle, where you resided three days, and once more returned to your 
homes." 



26 NORWICH DAYS [1819 

he had learned Irish, and Captain Borrow seemed to think 
that by learning the language of Papists and rebels, 
his son had sullied the family honour. To his father's 
way of thinking, this accomplishment seemed to bar him 
from most things that were at one and the same time 
honourable and desirable. 

The boy's own inclinations pointed to the army ; but 
Captain Borrow had apparently seen too much of the 
army in war time, and the slowness of promotion, to 
think of it as offering a career suitable to his son, now 
that there was every prospect of a prolonged peace. He 
thought of the church as an alternative ; but here again 
that fatal facility the boy had shown in learning Erse 
seemed to stand out as a barrier. " I have observed the 
poor lad attentively and really I do not see what to make 
of him," Captain Borrow is said to have remarked. What 
could be expected of a lad who would forsake Greek for 
Irish, or Latin for the barbarous tongue of homeless 
vagabonds? Certainly not a good churchman. At 
length it became obvious to the distressed parents that 
there was only one choice left them — the law. 

About this period Borrow fell ill of some nameless 
and unclassified disease, which defied the wisdom of 
physicians, who shook their heads gravely by his bedside. 
An old woman, however, cured him by a decoction 
prepared from a bitter root. The convalescence was 
slow and laborious ; for the boy's nerves were shattered, and 
that deep, haunting melancholy, which he first called the 
" Fear " and afterwards the " Horrors," descended upon 
him. 

On the 30th of March 18 19 Borrow was articled for five 
years to Simpson & Rackham, solicitors, of Tuck's Court, 
St Giles, Norwich. 1 He consequently left home to take 

1 According to the original manuscript of Lavengro, it appears 
that Roger Kerrison, a Norwich friend of Borrow's, strongly advised 
the law as " an excellent profession ... for those who never intend 
to follow it." — Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp, i., 66. 



II.] BLACKSTONE V. AB GWILYM 27 

up his abode at the house of the senior partner in the 
Upper Close. 1 Mr William Simpson was a man of 
considerable importance in the city ; for besides being 
Treasurer of the County, he was Chamberlain and Town 
Clerk, whilst his wife was famed for her hospitality, in 
particular her expensive dinners. 

With that unerring instinct of contrariety that never 
seemed to forsake him, Borrow proceeded to learn, not 
law but Welsh. When the eyes of authority were on him 
he transcribed Blackstone, but when they were turned away 
he read and translated the poems of Ab Gwilym. He 
performed his tasks " as well as could be expected in one 
who was occupied by so many and busy thoughts of 
his own." 

At the end of Tuck's Court was a house at which was 
employed a Welsh groom, a queer fellow who soon 
attracted the notice of Simpson & Rackham's clerks, 
young gentlemen who were bent on " mis-spending the 
time which was not legally their own." 2 They would 

1 The Rev. Wm. Drake of Mundesley, in a letter which appeared 
in The Eastern Daily Press, 22nd September 1892 : — 

" . . . I was at the Norwich Grammar School nine years, from 
1820 to 1829, and during that time (probably in 1824 and 1825) 
George Borrow was lodging in the Upper Close. . . . The house was 
a low old-fashioned building with a garden in front of it, and the fact 
of Borrow's residence there is fixed in my memory because I had 
spent the first five or six years of my own life in the same house, from 
181 1 to 1816 or 1817. My father occupied it in virtue of his being a 
minor canon in Norwich Cathedral. I remember Borrow very 
distinctly, because he was fond of chatting with the boys, who used 
to gather round the railings of his garden, and occasionally he would 
ask one or two of them to have tea with him. I have a faint 
recollection that he gave us some of our first notions of chess, but 
I am not sure of this. I . . . remember him a tall, spare, dark- 
complexioned man, usually dressed in black. In person he was not 
unlike another Norwich man, who obtained in those days a very 
different notoriety from that which now belongs to Borrow's name. 
I mean John Thurtell, who murdered Mr Weare." 

2 Wild Wales, page 3. 



28 NORWICH DAYS [1820 

make audible remarks about the unfortunate and in- 
offensive Welsh groom, calling out after him "Taffy" — 
in short, rendering the poor fellow's life a misery with 
their jibes, until at last, almost distracted, he had come to 
the determination either to give his master notice or to 
hang himself, that he might get away from that " nest of 
parcupines." Barrow saw in the predicament of the Welsh 
groom the hand of providence. He made a compact 
with him, that in exchange for lessons in Welsh, he, 
Borrow, should persuade his fellow clerks to cease their 
annoyance. 

From that time, each Sunday afternoon, the Welsh 
groom would go to Captain Borrow's house to instruct 
his son in Welsh pronunciation ; for in book Welsh 
Borrow was stronger than his preceptor. Borrow had 
learned the language of the bards "chiefly by going 
through Owen Pugh's version of ' Paradise Lost ' twice " 
with the original by his side. After which " there was 
very little in Welsh poetry that I could not make out 
with a little pondering." : This had occupied some three 
years. The studies with the groom lasted for about 
twelve months, until he left Norwich with his family. 2 

Captain Borrow's thoughts were frequently occupied 
with the future of his younger son, a problem that had by 
no means been determined by signing the articles that 
bound him to Simpson & Rackham. The boy was frank 
and honest and did not scruple to give expression to ideas 
of his own, and it was these ideas that alarmed his father. 
Once at the house of Mr Simpson, and before the 
assembled guests, he told an archdeacon, worth .£7000 a 
year, that the classics were much overvalued, and com- 

1 Wild Wales, page 157. 

2 Forty years later Borrow wrote of these days : — " ' How much 
more happy, innocent, and holy I was in the days of my boyhood 
when I translated Iolo's ode than I am at the present time !' Then 
covering my face with my hands I wept like a child." — Wild Wales, 
page 448. 



ii.] THE GOATS AND THE SHEEF 29 

pared Ab Gwilym with Ovid, to the detriment of the 
Roman. To Captain Borrow the possession of ideas upon 
any subject by one so young was in itself a thing to be 
deplored ; but to venture an opinion contrary to that 
commonly held by men of weight and substance was an 
unforgivable act of insubordination. 

The boy had been sent to Tuck's Court to learn law, 
and instead he persisted in acquiring languages, and such 
languages ! Welsh, Danish, Arabic, Armenian, Saxon ; 
for these were the tongues with which he occupied himself. 
None but a perfect mother such as Mrs Borrow could have 
found excuses for a son who pursued such studies, and her 
husband pointed out to her, it is " in the nature of women 
invariably to take the part of the second born." 

In one of those curiously self-revelatory passages with 
which his writings abound, Borrow tells how he continued 
to act as door-keeper long after it had ceased to be part 
of his duty. As a student of men and a collector of 
strange characters, it was in keeping with his genius to do 
so, although he himself was unable to explain why he 
took pleasure in the task. No one was admitted to the 
presence of the senior partner who did not first pass the 
searching scrutiny of his articled clerk. Those who 
pleased him were admitted to Mr Simpson's private room ; 
to those who did not he proved himself an almost insuper- 
able obstacle. Unfortunately Borrow's standards were 
those of the physiognomist rather than the lawyer ; he 
inverted the whole fabric of professional desirability by 
admitting the goats and refusing the sheep. He turned 
away a knight, or a baronet, and admitted a poet, until at 
last the distressed old gentleman in black, with the 
philanthropical head, his master, was forced to expostu- 
late and adjure his clerk to judge, not by faces but 
by clothes, which in reality make the man. Borrow 
bowed to the ruling of " the prince of English solicitors," 
revised his standards and continued to act as keeper of 
the door. 



30 NORWICH DAYS [1820 

Mr Simpson seems to have earned Borrow's thorough 
regard, no small achievement considering in how much he 
differed from his illustrious articled-clerk in everything, 
not excepting humour, of which the delightful, old-world 
gentleman seems to have had a generous share. He was 
doubtless puzzled to classify the strange being by whose 
instrumentality a stream of undesirable people was 
admitted to his presence, whilst distinguished clients were 
sternly and rigorously turned away. He probably smiled 
at the story of the old yeoman and his wife who, in return 
for some civility shown to them by Borrow, presented him 
with an old volume of Danish ballads, which inspired him 
to learn the language, aided by a Danish Bible. 1 He was 
not only "the first solicitor in East Anglia," but "the 
prince of all English solicitors — for he was a gentleman ! " 2 
In another place Borrow refers to him as " my old master 
. . . who would have died sooner than broken his word. 
God bless him ! " 3 And yet again as " my ancient master, 
the gentleman solicitor of East Anglia." 4 

Borrow was always handsome in everything he did. 
If he hated a man he hated him, his kith and kin and all 

1 There is no doubt that Borrow became possessed of a copy of 
Kicempe Viser, first collected by Anders Vedel, which may or may 
not have been given to him, with a handshake from the old farmer 
and a kiss from his wife, in recognition of the attention he had shown 
the pair in his official capacity. He refers to the volume repeatedly 
in Lavengro, and narrates how it was presented by some shipwrecked 
Danish mariners to the old couple in acknowledgment of their 
humanity and hospitality. It is, however, most likely that he was in 
error when he stated that "in less than a month" he was able "to 
read the book." — Lavengro, pages 140-4. 

2 Wild Wales, page 2. 

3 Wild Wales, page 374. 

4 Wild Wales, page 9. There is an interesting letter written 
to Borrow by the old lawyer's son on the appearance of Lavengro, 
in which he says : " With tearful eyes, yet smiling lips, I have read 
and re-read your faithful portrait of my dear old father. I cannot 
mistake him — the creaking shoes, the florid face, the polished pate 
— all serve as marks of recognition to his youngest son ! " 



II.] THE CORPORATION LIBRARY 31 

who bore his name. His friendship was similarly sweep- 
ing, and his regard for William Simpson prompted him to 
write subsequently of the law as " a profession which 
abounds with honourable men, and in which I believe 
there are fewer scamps than in any other. The most 
honourable men I have ever known have been lawyers ; 
they were men whose word was their bond, and who would 
have preferred ruin to breaking it." 1 

Fortunately for Borrow there was at the Norwich 
Guildhall a valuable library consisting of a large number 
of ancient folios written in many languages. "Amidst the 
dust and cobwebs of the Corporation Library " he studied 
earnestly and, with a fine disregard for a librarian's feelings, 
annotated some of the volumes, his marginalia existing to 
this day. One of his favourite works was the Danica 
Literatura Antiquissima of Olaus Wormius, 1636, which 
inspired him with the idea of adopting the name Olaus, his 
subsequent contributions to The New Magazine being 
signed George Olaus Borrow. 

Whilst Borrow was striving to learn languages and 
avoid the law, 2 the question of his brother's career was 
seriously occupying the mind of their father. Borrow 
loved and admired his brother. There is sincerity in all 
he writes concerning John, and there is something of 
nobility about the way in which he tells of his father's 
preference for him. " Who," he asks, " cannot excuse the 
honest pride of the old man — the stout old man ? " 3 

The Peace had closed to John Borrow the army as a 
profession, and he had devoted himself assiduously to his 
art. Under Crome the elder he had made considerable 

1 Wild Wales, page 374. 

2 During the five years that he was articled to Simpson & Rack- 
ham, Borrow, according to Dr Knapp, studied Welsh, Danish, 
German, Hebrew, Arabic, Gaelic, and Armenian. He already 
had a knowledge of Latin, Greek, Irish, French, Italian, and 
Spanish. 

3 Lavenqro, page 135. 



32 NORWICH DAYS [1820 

progress, and had exhibited a number of pictures at the 
yearly exhibitions of the Norwich Society of Artists. He 
continued to study with Crome until the artist's death 
(22nd April 1 821), when a new master had to besought. 
With his father's blessing and £150 he proceeded to 
London, where he remained for more than a year studying 
with B. R. Haydon. 1 Later he went to Paris to copy Old 
Masters. 

About this time Borrow had an opportunity of seeing 
many of "the bruisers of England." In his veins flowed 
the blood of the man who had met Big Ben Bryan and 
survived the encounter undefeated. " Let no one sneer at 
the bruisers of England," Borrow wrote — " What were the 
gladiators of Rome, or the bull-fighters of Spain, in its 
palmiest days, compared to England's bruisers ? " 2 he 
asks. On 17th July 1820 Edward Painter of Norwich 
was to meet Thomas Oliver of London for a purse of a 
hundred guineas. On the Saturday previous (the 15th) 
the Norwich hotels began to fill with bruisers and their 
patrons, and men went their ways anxiously polite to the 
stranger, lest he turn out to be some champion whom it 
were dangerous to affront. Thomas Cribb, the champion 
of England, had come to see the fight, " Teucer Belcher, 
. . . savage Shelton, . . . the terrible Randall, . . . Bull- 
dog Hudson, . . . fearless Scroggins, . . . Black Rich- 
mond, . . . Tom of Bedford," and a host of lesser lights 
of the " Fancy." 

On the Monday, upwards of 20,000 men swept out of 
the old city towards North Walsham, less than twenty 
miles distant, among them George Borrow, striding along 
among the varied stream of men and vehicles (some 
2000 in number) to see the great fight, which was to end 
in the victory of the local man and a terrible storm, as if 
heaven were thundering its anger against a brutal 
spectacle. The sportsmen were left to find their way to 

1 Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786- 1846), the historical painter. 
- Lavengro, page 166. 



ii] « GODLESS BILLY " TAYLOR 33 

shelter, Borrow and Mr Petulengro, whom he had 
encountered just after the fight, with them, talking of 
dukkeripens (fortunes). 

Some time during the year 1820, a Jew named Levy 
(the Mousha of Lavengro), Borrow's instructor in Hebrew, 
introduced him to William Taylor, 1 one of the most 
extraordinary men that Norwich ever produced. In the 
long-limbed young lawyer's clerk, whose hair was rapidly 
becoming grey, Taylor showed great interest, and, as an 
act of friendship, undertook to teach him German. He was 
gratified by the young man's astonishing progress, and much 
interested in his remarkable personality. As a result Borrow 
became a frequent visitor at 21 King Street, Norwich, 
where Taylor lived and many strange men assembled. 

It is doubtful if William Taylor ever found another 
pupil so apt, or a disciple so enthusiastic among all the 
"harum-scarum young men" 2 that he was so fond of 
taking up and introducing " into the best society the place 
afforded." 3 He was much impressed by Borrow's extra- 
ordinary memory and power of concentration. Speaking one 
day of the different degrees of intelligence in men he said : — 

" I cannot give you a better example to explain my 
meaning than my two pupils (there was another named 
Cooke, who was said to be ' a genius in his way ' ) ; what I 
tell Borrow once he ever remembers ; whilst to the fellow 
Cooke I have to repeat the same thing twenty times, often 
without effect ; and it is not from want of memory either, 
but he will never be a linguist." 4 

1 William Taylor (1765- 1836) was an admirer of German literature 
and a defender of the French Revolution. He is credited with having 
first inspired his friend Southey with a liking for poetry. He travelled 
much abroad, met Goethe, attended the National Assembly debates 
in 1790, translated from the German and contributed to a number of 
English periodicals. 

2 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, 1877. 

3 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, 1877. 

4 Letter from "A School-fellow of Lavengro" in The Britannia, 
26th April 185 1. 

C 



34 NORWICH DAYS [1821 

To a correspondent Taylor wrote : — 

" A Norwich young man is construing with me 
Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, with the view of translating it for 
the press. His name is George Henry Borrow, and he 
has learnt German with extraordinary rapidity ; indeed, 
he has the gift of tongues, and, though not yet eighteen, 
understands twelve languages — English, Welsh, Erse, 
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Danish, French, Italian, 
Spanish, and Portuguese ; he would like to get into the 
Office for Foreign Affairs, but does not know how." * 

This was in 1821 ; two years later Borrow is said to 
have " translated with fidelity and elegance from twenty 
different languages." 2 In spite of his later achieve- 
ments in learning languages, it seems scarcely credible 
that he acquired eight separate languages in two years, 
although it must be remembered that with him the learning 
of a language was to be able to read it after a rather 
laborious fashion. Taylor, however, uses the words 
" facility and elegance." 

In the autobiographical notes that Borrow supplied to 
Mr John Longe in 1862 there appears the following 
passage : — 

" At the expiration of his clerkship he knew little of the 
law, but he was well versed in languages, being not only a 
good Greek and Latin scholar, but acquainted with French, 
Italian, Spanish, all the Celtic and Gothic dialects, and 
likewise with the peculiar language of the English Romany 
dials or gypsies." 

At William Taylor's table Borrow met "the most 
intellectual and talented men of Norwich, as also those of 
note who visited the city." 3 Taylor was much interested 
in young men, into whose minds he did not hesitate to 
instil his own ideas, ideas that not only earned for him 
the name of " Godless Billy," but outraged his respectable 

1 Memoir of Wm. Taylor, by J. W. Robberds. 

2 Memoir of Wm. Taylor, by J. W. Robberds. 

3 Letter from "A School-fellow of Lavengro" in The Britannia, 
26th April 1 85 1. 




WILLIAM TAYLOR OF NORWICH. 



[ To ]ace page 34. 



ii.] AN ENEMY OF HUMBUG 35 

fellow-citizens as much as did his intemperate habits. " His 
face was terribly bloated from drink, and he had a look as if 
his intellect was almost as much decayed as his body," 
wrote a contemporary. 1 " Matters grew worse in his old 
age," says Harriet Martineau, " when his habits of in- 
temperance kept him out of the sight of ladies, and he got 
round him a set of ignorant and conceited young men, who 
thought they could set the whole world right by their 
destructive propensities. One of his chief favourites was 
George Borrow." 2 Borrow has given the following con- 
vincing picture of Taylor : 

" Methought I was in a small, comfortable room wain- 
scotted with oak ; I was seated on one side of a fireplace, 
close by a table on which were wine and fruit ; on the 
other side of the fire sat a man in a plain suit of brown, 
with the hair combed back from the somewhat high fore- 
head ; he had a pipe in his mouth, which for some time he 
smoked gravely and placidly, without saying a word ; at 
length, after drawing at the pipe for some time rather 
vigorously, he removed it from his mouth, and emitting 
an accumulated cloud of smoke, he exclaimed in a 
slow and measured tone : ' As I was telling you just 
now, my good chap, I have always been an enemy of 
humbug.'" 3 

William Taylor appears to have flattered " the harum- 
scarum young men " with whom he surrounded himself by 
talking to them as if they were his intellectual equals. He 
encouraged them to form their own opinions, in itself a 
thing scarcely likely to make him popular with either 
parents or guardians, least of all with discipline-loving 
Captain Borrow, who declined even to return the salute of 
his son's friend on the public highway. 

Borrow now began to look to the future and speculate 
as to what his present life would lead to. His cogitations 

1 The Rev. Whitwell Elvvin, in a letter, 17th February 1887. 

2 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, 1877. 

3 Lavengro, page 355. 



36 NORWICH DAYS [1821 

seem to have ended, almost invariably, in a gloomy mist 
of pessimism and despair — in other words, an attack of 
the " Horrors." If Mr Petulengro were encamped upon 
Mousehold, the antidote lay near to hand in his friend's 
pagan optimism ; if, on the other hand, the tents of Egypt 
were pitched on other soil, there was no remedy, unless 
perhaps a prize-fight supplied the necessary stimulus to 
divert his thoughts from their melancholy trend. 

Borrow met at the house of his tutor and friend, in July 
1821, Dr Bowring 1 (afterwards Sir John) at a dinner given 
in his honour. Bowring had recently published Specimen 
of Russian Poets, in recognition of which the Czar 
(Alexander I.) had presented him with a diamond ring. 
He had a considerable reputation as a linguist, which 
naturally attracted Borrow to him. Dr Bowring was told 
of Borrow's accomplishments, and during the evening took 
a seat beside him. Borrow confessed to being " a little 
frightened at first " of the distinguished man, whom he 
described as having " a thin weaselly figure, a sallow com- 
plexion, a certain obliquity of vision, and a large pair of 
spectacles." It would be dangerous to accept entirely the 
account that Borrow gives of the meeting, 2 because when 
that was written he had come to hate and despise the man 
whom he had begun by regarding with such awe. Bowring 

1 John Bowring, F.R.S. (1792-1872), began life in trade, went to 
the Peninsula for Milford & Co., army contractors, in 181 1, set up 
for himself as a merchant, travelled and acquired a number of 
languages. He was ambitious, energetic and shrewd. He became 
editor of The Westminster Review in 1824, and LL.D., Gronigen, in 
1829. He was sent by the Government upon a commercial mission to 
Belgium, 1833 ; to Egypt ; Syria and Turkey, 1837-8 ; M.P. for Clyde 
burghs, 1835-7, and for Bolton, 1841 ; was instrumental in obtaining 
the issue of the florin as a first step toward a decimal system of 
currency; Consul of Canton, 1847; plenipotentiary to China; 
governor, commander-in-chief, and vice-admiral of Hong Kong, 1854; 
knighted 1854 ; established diplomatic and commercial relations with 
Siam, 1855. He published a number of volumes of translations from 
various languages. He died full of years and honours in 1872. 

'- The Romany Rye, page 368, et sea. 




GEORGE BORROW (1821) 

(From a hitherto unpublished painting by John Borrow, now in the possession of 

W. F. T. Jarrold, Esq.). 



[ To face page 30. 



il] AN EMBARRASSING QUESTION 37 

appears to have ventilated his views with some freedom, 
and to have had a rather serious passage of arms with 
another guest whom he had rudely contradicted. It is very 
probable that Borrow's dislike of Bowring prompted him 
to exaggerate his account of what happened at Taylor's 
house that evening. 

Whilst Borrow was industriously occupied in collecting 
vagabonds and imbibing the dangerous beliefs of William 
Taylor, there sat in an easy-chair in the small front- 
parlour of the little house in Willow Lane, in a faded regi- 
mental coat, a prematurely old man, whose frame still showed 
signs of the magnificent physique of his vigorous manhood. 
" Sometimes in prayer, sometimes in meditation, and 
sometimes in reading the Scriptures," with his dog beside 
him, Captain Thomas Borrow, now sixty-five, was prepar- 
ing for the end that he felt to be approaching. He 
frequently meditated upon what was to become of his 
younger son George, who held his father in such awe as to 
feel ill at ease when alone with him. 

One day the inevitable interrogation took place. 
" What do you propose to do ? " and the equally inevitable 
reply followed, " I really do not know what I shall do." 
In the course of a somewhat lengthy cross-examination, 
Captain Borrow discovered that his son knew the 
Armenian tongue, for which he very cunningly strove 
to enlist his father's interest by telling him that in 
Armenia was Mount Ararat, whereon the ark rested. 
Captain Borrow also discovered that his son could not 
only shoe a horse, but also make the shoes ; but, 
what was most important, he found that George had 
learned " very little " law. When asked if he thought he 
could support himself by Armenian or his " other acquire- 
ments," the younger man was not very hopeful, and 
horrified the old soldier by suggesting that if all else 
failed there was always suicide. 

The dying man was thus left to yearn for the return of 
his elder son, in whom all his hopes lay centred. John 



38 NORWICH DAYS [1824 

appears to have been by no means dutiful to his parents in 
the matter of letters. For six months he left them 
unacquainted even with his address in Paris, where he was 
still copying Old Masters in the Louvre. 

After their talk the father and younger son seem to have 
come to a better understanding. George would frequently 
read aloud from the Bible, whilst Captain Borrow would tell 
about his early life. His son " had no idea that he knew 
and had seen so much ; my respect for him increased, and 
I looked upon him almost with admiration. His 
anecdotes were in general highly curious ; some of them 
related to people in the highest stations, and to men whose 
names are closely connected with some of the brightest 
glories of our native land." x 

At last John arrived, apparently a little disillusioned 
with the world ; but the coming of his favourite son 
produced no change for the better in Captain Borrow's 
health. He was content and happy that God had 
granted his wish. There remained nothing now to do 
but "to bless my little family and go." George learned 
" that it is possible to feel deeply and yet make no out- 
ward sign." 

The end came on the morning of 28th February 1824. 
It was by a strange chance that the old man should die 
in the arms of his younger son, who had run down on 
hearing his mother's anguished screams. Borrow has 
given a dramatic account of his father's last moments : — 

" At the dead hour of night, it might be about two, I 
was awakened from sleep by a cry which sounded from the 
room immediately below that in which I slept. I knew 
the cry, it was the cry of my mother, and I also knew its 
import ; yet I made no effort to rise, for I was for the 
moment paralysed. Again the cry sounded, yet still I lay 
motionless — the stupidity of horror was upon me. A third 
time, and it was then that, by a violent effort bursting the 
spell which appeared to bind me, I sprang from the bed 
and rushed downstairs. My mother was running wildly 

1 Lavcngro, pages 177-8. 



ii.] DEATH OF CAPTAIN BORROW 39 

about the room ; she had awoke and found my father 
senseless in the bed by her side. I essayed to raise him, 
and after a few efforts supported him in the bed in a sitting 
posture. My brother now rushed in, and snatching a light 
that was burning, he held it to my father's face. ' The 
surgeon, the surgeon ! ' he cried ; then dropping the light, 
he ran out of the room followed by my mother ; I 
remained alone, supporting the senseless form of my 
father ; the light had been extinguished by the fall, and 
an almost total darkness reigned in the room. The form 
pressed heavily against my bosom — at last methought it 
moved. Yes, I was right, there was a heaving of the 
breast, and then a gasping. Were those words which I 
heard ? Yes, they were words, low and indistinct at first, 
and then audible. The mind of the dying man was 
reverting to former scenes. I heard him mention names 
which I had often heard him mention before. It was an 
awful moment ; I felt stupified, but I still contrived to support 
my dying father. There was a pause, again my father spoke : 
I heard him speak of Minden, and of Meredith, the old 
Minden sergeant, and then he uttered another name, which 
at one period of his life was much on his lips, the name of 
— but this is a solemn moment ! There was a deep gasp : 
I shook, and thought all was over ; but I was mistaken — 
my father moved and revived for a moment ; he supported 
himself in bed without my assistance. I make no doubt 
that for a moment he was perfectly sensible, and it was 
then that, clasping his hands, he uttered another name 
clearly, distinctly — it was the name of Christ. With that 
name upon his lips, the brave old soldier sank back upon 
my bosom, and, with his hands still clasped, yielded up his 
soul." 1 

1 Lavengro, pages 179-80. Captain Borrow was in his sixty-sixth 
year at his death ; b. December 1758, d. 28th February 1824. He 
was buried in St Giles churchyard, Norwich, on 4th March 1824. 



CHAPTER III 

APRIL 1824 — MAY 1825 

/^\N 2nd April 1824, George Borrow was cast upon the 
^-^ world of London by the death of his father, " with 
an exterior shy and cold, under which lurk much curiosity, 
especially with regard to what is wild and extraordinary, 
a considerable quantity of energy and industry, and an 
unconquerable love of independence." 1 

It had become necessary for him to earn his own 
livelihood. Captain Borrow's pension had ceased with his 
death, and the old soldier's savings of a lifetime were 
barely sufficient to produce an income of a hundred pounds 
a year for his widow. The provision made in the will for 
his younger son during his minority would operate only 
for about four months, as he would be of age in the 
following July.' 2 The clerkship with Simpson & Rackham 
would expire at the end of March. Borrow had outlined 
his ambitions in a letter written on 20th January 1824, 
when he was ill and wretched, to Roger Kerrison, then in 
London: " If ever my health mends [this has reference to 
a very unpleasant complaint he had contracted], and 
possibly it may by the time my clerkship is expired, I 

1 The Romany Rye, page 302. 

2 In his will Captain Borrow bequeathed to George his watch and 
"the small Portrait," and to John "the large Portrait" of himself, 
his mother to hold and enjoy them during her lifetime. Should 
Mrs Borrow die or marry again, elaborate provision was made for the 
proper distribution of the property between the two sons. 

40 



in.] THE GREEN BOX 41 

intend to live in London, write plays, poetry, etc., abuse 
religion and get myself prosecuted," for he was tired of 
the "dull and gloomy town." It was therefore with a 
feeling of relief that, on the evening of 1st April, he took 
his seat on the top of the London coach, his hopes centred 
in a small green box that he carried with him. It 
contained his stock-in-trade as an author : his beloved 
manuscripts, "closely written over in a singular hand." 
Among the bundles of papers were : 

(i.) The Ancient Songs of Denmark, heroic and 
romantic, translated by himself, with notes philological, 
critical and historical. 

(ii.) The Songs of Ab Gwilym, the Welsh Bard, also 
translated by himself, with notes critical, philological and 
historical. 1 

(iii.) A romance in the German style. 

In addition to his manuscripts, Borrow had some 
twenty or thirty pounds, his testimonials, and a letter 
from William Taylor to Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher, 
to whose New Magazine he had already contributed a num- 
ber of translations of poems. He had also printed in The 
Monthly Magazine and The New Monthly Magazine trans- 
lations of verse from the German, Swedish, Dutch, Danish 
and Spanish, and an essay on Danish ballad writing. 

On the morning of 2nd April there arrived at 16 
Milman Street, Bedford Row, London, W.C., 

" A lad who twenty tongues can talk, 
And sixty miles a day can walk ; 
Drink at a draught a pint of rum, 
And then be neither sick nor dumb ; 
Can tune a song and make a verse, 
And deeds of Northern kings rehearse ; 

1 In particular Borrow believed in Ab Gwilym " the greatest 
poetical genius that has appeared in Europe since the revival of 
literature" {Wild Wales, page 6). "The great poet of Nature, the 
contemporary of Chaucer, but worth half-a-dozen of the accomplished 
word-master, the ingenious versifier of Norman and Italian Tales." 
(Wild Wales, page xxviii.). 



42 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1824 

Who never will forsake his friend 
While he his bony fist can bend ; 
And, though averse to broil and strife, 
Will fight a Dutchman with a knife ; 
O that is just the lad for me, 
And such is honest six-foot-three." 1 

It was through the Kerrisons that Borrow went to 
1 6 Milman Street, where Roger was lodging. His apart- 
ments seem to have been dismal enough, consisting of 
" a small room, up two pair of stairs, in which I was to 
sit, and another, still smaller, above it, in which I was 
to sleep." After the first feeling of loneliness had 
passed, dispelled largely by a bright fire and break- 
fast, he sallied forth, the contents of the green box 
under his arm, to present his letter of introduction 
to Sir Richard Phillips, 2 in whom centred his hopes of 
employment. 

On arriving at the publisher's house in Tavistock 
Square, he was immediately shown into Sir Richard's 
study, where he found " a tall, stout man, about sixty, 
dressed in a loose morning gown," and with him his 
confidential clerk Bartlett (the Taggart of Lavengrd). Sir 
Richard was at first enthusiastic and cordial, but when 
he learned from William Taylor's letter that Borrow had 
come up to earn his livelihood by authorship, his manner 
underwent a marked change. The bluff, hearty expression 
gave place to " a sinister glance," and Borrow found that 
within that loose morning gown there was a second Sir 
Richard. 

He learned two things — first, that Sir Richard Phillips 
had retired from publishing and had reserved only The 

1 Lines to Six- Foot-Three. Romantic Ballads. Norwich 1826. 

2 Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840) before becoming a publisher 
was a schoolmaster, hosier, stationer, bookseller, and vendor of 
patent medicines at Leicester, where he also founded a newspaper. 
In 1795 he came to London, was sheriff in 1807, and received his 
knighthood a year later. 




SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS 
(From the painting by James Saxon in the National Portrait Gallery). 



[To face page 42 



in.] A VEGETARIAN PUBLISHER 43 

Monthly Magazine ; x secondly, that literature was a drug 
upon the market. With airy self-assertiveness, the ex- 
publisher dismissed the contents of the green box that 
Borrow had brought with him, which had already aroused 
considerable suspicion in the mind of the maid who had 
admitted him to the publisher's presence. 

When he had thoroughly dashed the young author's 
hopes of employment, Sir Richard informed him of a 
new publication he had in preparation, The Universal 
Review [The Oxford Review of Lavengro\ which was to 
support the son of the house and the wife he had married. 
With a promise that he should become a contributor to 
the new review, an earnest exhortation to write a story 
in the style of The Dairyman's Daughter, and an invitation 
to dinner for the following Sunday, the first interview 
between George Borrow and Sir Richard Phillips ended, 
and Borrow left the great man's presence to begin his 
exploration of London, first leaving his manuscripts at 
Milman Street. During the rest of the day he walked 
"scarcely less than thirty miles about the big city." It 
was late when he returned to his lodgings, thoroughly 
tired, but with a copy of The Dairyman's Daughter, for 
" a well-written tale in the style " of which Sir Richard 
Phillips " could afford as much as ten pounds." The day 
had been one of the most eventful in Borrow's life. 

On the following Sunday Borrow dined at Tavistock 
Square, and met Lady Phillips, young Phillips and his 

1 It has been urged against Borrow's accuracy that Sir Richard 
Phillips had retired to Brighton in 1823, vide The Dictionary of 
National Biography. In the January number (1824) of The Monthly 
Magazine appeared the following paragraph : " The Editor [Sir 
Richard Phillips], having retired from his commercial engagements 
and removed from his late house of business in New Bridge Street, 
communications should be addressed to the appointed Publishers 
[Messrs Whittakers] ; but personal interviews of Correspondents and 
interested persons may be obtained at his private residence in 
Tavistock Square." This proves conclusively that Sir Richard was to 
be seen in London in the early part of 1824. 



44 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1824 

bride. He learned that Sir Richard was a vegetarian 
of twenty years' standing and a total abstainer, although 
meat and wine were not banished from his table. When 
publisher and potential author were left alone, the son 
having soon followed the ladies into the drawing-room, 
Borrow heard of Sir Richard's amiable intentions towards 
him. He was to compile six volumes of the lives and 
trials of criminals [the Newgate Lives and Trials of 
Lavengro\ each to contain not less than a thousand 
pages. 1 For this work he was to receive the munificent 
sum of fifty pounds, which was to cover all expenses 
incurred in the purchase of books, papers and manuscripts 
necessary to the compilation of the work. This was 
only one of the employments that the fertile brain of the 
publisher had schemed for him. He was also to make 
himself useful in connection with the forthcoming 
Universal Review. " Generally useful, sir — doing whatever 
is required of you " ; for it was not Sir Richard's custom 
to allow young writers to select their own subjects. 

With impressive manner and ponderous diction, Sir 
Richard Phillips unfolded his philanthropic designs regard- 
ing the young writer to whom his words meant a career. 
He did not end with the appointment of Borrow as general 
utility writer upon The Universal Review ; but proceeded 
to astonish him with the announcement that to him, 
George Borrow, understanding German in a manner that 
aroused the " strong admiration" of William Taylor, was to 
be entrusted the translating into that tongue of Sir Richard 
Phillips' book of Philosophy. 2 If translations of Goethe 
into English were a drug, Sir Richard Phillips' Proximate 
Causes was to prove that neither he nor his book would be 
a drug in Germany. For this work the remuneration was 

1 Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Juris- 
prudence from the Earliest Records to the Year 1825, 6 vols., with 
plates. London, 1825. 

2 Proximate Causes of the Material Phenomena of the Universe. 
By Sir Richard Phillips. London, 1821. 



in.] IN SEARCH OF CRIMINAL BIOGRAPHY 45 

to be determined by the success of the translation, an 
arrangement sufficiently vague to ensure eventual dis- 
agreement. 

When Sir Richard had finished his account of what 
were his intentions towards his guest, he gave him to 
understand that the interview was at an end, at the same 
time intimating how seldom it was that he dealt so 
generously with a young writer. Borrow then rose from the 
table and passed out of the house, leaving his host to 
muse, as was his custom on Sunday afternoons, " on the 
magnificence of nature and the moral dignity of man." 

For the next few weeks Borrow was occupied in 
searching in out-of-the-way corners for criminal biography. 
If he flagged, a visit from his philosopher-publisher spurred 
him on to fresh effort. He received a copy of Proximate 
Causes, with an injunction that he should review it in The 
Universal Review, as well as translate it into German. 
He was taken to and introduced to the working editor 1 of 
the new publication, which was only ostensibly under the 
control of young Phillips. 

In the provision that he should purchase at his own 
expense all the necessary materials for Celebrated Trials, 
Borrow found a serious tax upon his resources ; but a 
harder thing to bear with patience and good-humour were 
the frequent visits he received from Sir Richard himself, 
who showed the keenest possible interest in the progress 
of the compilation. He had already caused a preliminary 
announcement to be made 2 to the effect that : 

" A Selection of the most remarkable Trials and 

1 Dr Knapp identified the editor as "William GifFord, editor of 
The Quarterly Review from 1809 to September 1824." {Life of 
George Borrow, i. 93.) The late Sir Leslie Stephen, however, cast 
very serious doubt upon this identification, himself concluding that 
the editor of The Universal Review was John Carey (1756-1826), 
whose name was actually associated with an edition of Quintilian 
published in 1822. Carey was a known contributor to two of Sir 
Richard Phillips' magazines. 

2 The Monthly Magazine, July 1824. 



46 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1824 

Criminal Causes is printing, in five volumes. 1 It will 
include all famous cases, from that of Lord Cobham, in the 
reign of Henry the Fifth, to that of John Thurtell : and 
those connected with foreign as well as English juris- 
prudence. Mr Borrow, the editor, has availed himself of 
all the resources of the English, German, French, and 
Italian languages; and his work, including from 150 to 
200 2 of the most interesting cases on record, will appear in 
October next." 3 

Sir Richard's visits to Milman Street were always 
accompanied by numerous suggestions as to criminals 
whose claims to be included in this literary chamber of 
horrors were in his, Sir Richard's, opinion unquestionable. 
The English character of the compilation was soon 
sacrificed in order to admit notable malefactors of other 
nationalities, and the drain upon the editor's small capital 
became greater than ever. 

The leisure that he allowed himself, Borrow spent in 
exploring the city, or in the company of Francis Arden 
(Ardrey in Lavengro), whom he had met by chance in the 
coffee-room of a hotel. The two appear to have been 
excellent friends, perhaps because of the dissimilarity of 
their natures. " He was an Irishman," Borrow explains, 
" I an Englishman ; he fiery, enthusiastic and opened- 
hearted ; I neither fiery, enthusiastic, nor open-hearted ; 
he fond of pleasure and dissipation, I of study and 
reflection." 4 

They went to the play together, to dog-fights, gaming- 
houses, in short saw the sights of London. The arrival 
of Francis Arden at 16 Milman Street was a signal for 
books and manuscripts to be thrown aside in favour either 
of some expedition or an hour or two's conversation. 
Borrow, however, soon tired of the pleasures of London, 
and devoted himself almost entirely to work. Although 

1 It appeared in six volumes. 

'-' The work when completed contained accounts of over 400 trials. 

3 It appeared on 19th March following. 

4 Lavengro, page 210. 



in.] A VISIT FROM JOHN 47 

he saw less of Francis Arden in consequence, they 
continued to be excellent friends. 

After being some four weeks in London, Borrow 
received a surprise visit (29th April) from his brother, 
whom he found waiting for him one morning when 
he came down to breakfast. John told him of his 
mother's anxiety at receiving only one letter from 
him since his departure, of her fits of crying, of 
the grief of Captain Rorrow's dog at the loss of his 
master. He also explained the reason for his being in 
London. He had been invited to paint the portrait 
of Robert Hawkes, an ex - mayor of Norwich, for a 
fee of a hundred guineas. Lacking confidence in his 
own ability, he had declined the honour and sug- 
gested that Benjamin Haydon should be approached. 
At the request of a deputation of his fellow citizens, 
which had waited upon him, he had undertaken 
to enter into negotiations with Haydon. He even 
undertook to come up to London at his own expense, 
that he might see his old master and complete the 
bargain. Borrow subsequently accompanied his brother 
when calling upon Haydon, and was enabled to give 
a thumbnail - sketch of the painter of the Heroic at 
work that has been pronounced to be photographic in its 
faithfulness. 

John returned to Norwich about a fortnight later 
accompanied by Haydon, who was to become the guest 
of his sitter, 1 and George was left to the compilation of 
Celebrated Trials. Sir Richard Phillips appears to have 
been a man as prolific of suggestion as he was destitute 
of tact. He regarded his authors as the instruments of 
his own genius. Their business it was to carry out his 
ideas in a manner entirely congenial to his colossal 

1 The picture was duly painted in the Heroic manner, the artist 
lending to the ex-mayor, for some reason or other, his own unheroi- 
cally short legs. Haydon received his fee of a hundred guineas, 
and the picture now hangs in St Andrew's Hall, Norwich. 



48 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1824 

conceit. His latest author he exposed " to incredible 
mortification and ceaseless trouble from this same rage 
for interference." 

The result of all this was an attack of the " Horrors." 
Towards the end of May, Roger Kerrison received from 
Borrow a note saying that he believed himself to be dying, 
and imploring him to "come to me immediately." The 
direct outcome of this note was, not the death of Borrow, 
but the departure from Milman Street of Roger Kerri- 
son, lest he should become involved in a tragedy 
connected with Borrow's oft-repeated threat of suicide. 
Kerrison became " very uneasy and uncomfortable on 
his account, so that I have found it utterly im- 
possible to live any longer in the same lodgings with 
him." a Looked at dispassionately it seems nothing 
short of an act of cowardice on Kerrison's part to leave 
alone a man such as Borrow, who might at any moment 
be assailed by one of those periods of gloom from which 
suicide seemed the only outlet. On the other hand, from 
an anecdote told by C. G. Leland (" Hans Breitmann "), 
there seems to be some excuse for Kerrison's wish to 
live alone. "I knew at that time [about 1870]," he 
writes, 2 " a Mr Kerrison, who had been as a young 
man, probably in the Twenties, on intimate terms 
with Borrow. He told me that one night Borrow 
acted very wildly, whooping and vociferating so as to 
cause the police to follow him, and after a long run led 
them to the edge of the Thames, ' and there they 
thought they had him.' But he plunged boldly into the 
water and swam in his clothes to the opposite shore, and 
so escaped." 

A serious misfortune now befell Borrow in the pre- 
mature death of The Universal Review, which expired 
with the sixth number (March 1824 — January 1825). It is 
not known what was the rate of pay to young and 

1 Letter from Roger Kerrison to John Borrow, 28th May 1824. 

2 Memoirs, C. G. Lelaiid, 1893. 



in.] " GLORIOUS JOHN " 49 

impecunious reviewers ; 1 certainly not large, if it may be 
judged by the amount agreed upon for Celebrated Trials. 
Still, its end meant that Borrow was now dependent upon 
what he received for his compilation, and what he merited 
by his translation into German of Proximate Causes. 

There appears to have been some difficulty about 
payment for Borrow's contributions to the now defunct 
review, which considerably widened the breach that the 
Trials had created. Sir Richard became more exacting 
and more than ever critical. 2 The end could not be far 
off. Borrow had come to London determined to be an 
author, and by no juggling with facts could his present 
drudgery be considered as authorship. Occasionally his 
mind reverted to the manuscripts in the green box, his 
faith in which continued undiminished. He made further 
efforts to get his translations published, but everywhere 
the answer was the same, in effect, " A drug, sir, a drug ! " 
At last he determined to approach John Murray (the 
Second), " Glorious John, who lived at the western end of 
the town " ; but he called many times without being suc- 
cessful in seeing him. Another seventeen years were to 
elapse before he was to meet and be published by John 
Murray. 

Yet another dispute arose between Borrow and Sir 
Richard Phillips. Neither appeared to have realised 
the supreme folly of entrusting to a young Englishman 
the translation into German of an English work. A novel 
would have presented almost insurmountable difficulties ; 
but a work of philosophy ! The whole project was absurd. 
The diction of philosophy in all languages is individual, 
just as it is in other branches of science, and a very 

1 Borrow himself gave the sum as " eighteen-pence a page." The 
books themselves apparently did not become the property of the 
reviewer. — The Romany Rye, page 324. 

2 Borrow says that he demanded lives of people who had never 
lived, and cancelled others that Borrow had prepared with great care, 
because he considered them as "drugs." — Lavengro, pages 245-6. 

D 



50 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1825 

thorough knowledge of, and deep reading in both 
languages are necessary to qualify a man to translate 
from a foreign tongue into his own. To expect an 
inexperienced youth to reverse the order seems to suggest 
that Sir Richard Phillips must have been a publisher 
whose enthusiasm was greater than his judgment 

One day when calling at Tavistock Square, Borrow 
found Sir Richard in a fury of rage. He had submitted 
the first chapter of the translation of Proximate Causes 
to some Germans, who found it utterly unintelligible. 
This was only to be expected, as Borrow confesses that, 
when he found himself unable to comprehend what was 
the meaning of the English text, he had translated it 
literally into German ! 

The result of the interview was that Borrow, after 
what appears to be a tactless, not to say impertinent, 
rejoinder, l relapsed into silence and finally left the house, 
ordered back to his compilation by Sir Richard, as soon 
as he became sufficiently calm to appear coherent, and 
Borrow walked away musing on the "difference in clever 
men." 

The discovery of the inadequacy of the German trans- 
lation apparently urged Borrow to hasten on with 
Celebrated Trials. The Universal Review was dead, 
the German version of Proximate Causes' 1 had passed 
out of his hands. It was desirable, therefore, that the 
remaining undertaking should be completed as soon as 
possible, that the two might part. The last of the manu- 
script was delivered, the proofs passed for press, and on 
19th March the work appeared, the six volumes, running 

1 "'Sir,' said he, 'you know nothing of German ; I have shown 
your translation of the first chapter of my Philosophy to several 
Germans : it is utterly unintelligible to them.' ' Did they see the 
Philosophy?' I replied. 'They did, sir, but they did not profess to 
understand English.' 'No more do I,' I replied, 'if the Philosophy 
be English.'" — Lavengro, page 254. 

2 A German edition of the work appeared in Stuttgart in 1826. 



in.] A MASTER OF IRONY 51 

to between three and four thousand pages, containing 
accounts of some four hundred trials, including that 
of Borrow's old friend Thurtell for the murder of Mr 
Weare. 

Borrow's name did not appear. He was "the editor," 
and as such was referred to in the preface contributed by 
Sir Richard himself. Among other things he tells of how, 
in some cases, " the Editor has compressed into a score of 
pages the substance of an entire volume." Sir Richard 
was a philosopher as well as a preface-writing publisher, 
and it was only natural that he should speculate as to the 
effect upon his editor's mind of months spent in reading 
and editing such records of vice. " It may be expected," 
he writes, " that the Editor should convey to his readers the 
intellectual impressions which the execution of his task has 
produced on his mind. He confesses that they are mourn- 
ful." Sir Richard was either a master of irony, or a man 
of singular obtuseness. 

One effect of this delving into criminal records had 
been to raise in Borrow's mind strange doubts about 
virtue and crime. When a boy, he had written an essay 
in which he strove to prove that crime and virtue were 
mere terms, and that we were the creatures of necessity or 
circumstance. These broodings in turn reawakened the 
theory that everything is a lie, and that nothing really 
exists except in our imaginations. The world was " a 
maze of doubt." These indications of an overtaxed brain 
increased, and eventually forced Borrow to leave London. 
His work was thoroughly uncongenial. He disliked 
reviewing ; he had failed in his endeavours to render 
Proximate Causes into intelligible German ; and it had 
taken him some time to overcome his dislike of the sordid 
stories of crime and criminals that he had to read and edit. 
He became gloomy and depressed, and prone to compare 
the real conditions of authorship with those that his 
imagination had conjured up. 

The most important result of his labours in connec- 



52 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1825 

tion with Celebrated Trials was that upon his literary 
style. There is a tremendous significance in the following 
passage. It tells of the transition of the actual vagabond 
into the literary vagabond, with power to express in 
words what proved so congenial to Borrow's vagabond 
temperament : 

" Of all my occupations at this period I am free to confess 
I liked that of compiling the Newgate Lives and Trials 
[Celebrated Trials] the best; that is, after I had surmounted 
a kind of prejudice which I originally entertained. The 
trials were entertaining enough ; but the lives — how full 
were they of wild and racy adventures, and in what racy, 
genuine language were they told. What struck me most 
with respect to these lives was the art which the writers, 
whoever they were, possessed of telling a plain story. It 
is no easy thing to tell a story plainly and distinctly by 
mouth; but to tell one on paper is difficult indeed, so many 
snares lie in the way. People are afraid to put down what 
is common on paper, they seek to embellish their narratives, 
as they think, by philosophic speculations and reflections ; 
they are anxious to shine, and people who are anxious to 
shine can never tell a plain story. ' So I went with them 
to a music booth, where they made me almost drunk with 
gin, and began to talk their flash language, which I did 
not understand,' 1 says, or is made to say, Henry Simms, 
executed at Tyburn some seventy years before the time 
of which I am speaking. I have always looked upon this 
sentence as a masterpiece of the narrative style, it is so 
concise and yet so clear." * 2 

By the time the work was published and Borrow had 
been paid his fee, all relations between editor and publisher 
had ceased, and there was "a poor author, or rather 
philologist, upon the streets of London, possessed of 
many tongues," which he found " of no use in the world." 3 
A month after the appearance of Celebrated Trials (18th 
April), and a little more than a year after his arrival in 
London, Borrow published a translation of Klinger's 

1 This sentence is quoted in The Gypsies of Spain as a heading to 
he section "On Robber Language," page 335. 

2 Lavengro, pages 216-7. 3 Lavengro, page 271. 



in.] A BOOK TO BE BURNED 53 

Faustus} He himself gives no particulars as to whether 
it was commissioned or no. It may even have been " the 
Romance in the German style " from the Green Box. It 
is known that he received payment for it by a bill at five 
or six months, 2 but there is no mention of the amount. It 
would appear that the translation had long been projected, 
for in The Monthly Magazine, July 1824, there appeared, 
in conjunction with the announcement of Celebrated Trials, 
the following paragraph : " The editor of the preceding 
has ready for the press, a Life of Faustus, his Death and 
Descent into Hell, which will also appear the next winter." 

Faustus did not meet with a very cordial reception. 
The Literary Gazette (16th July 1825) characterised it as 
" another work to which no respectable publisher ought to 
have allowed his name to be put. The political allusion 
and metaphysics, which may have made it popular among 
a low class in Germany, do not sufficiently season its lewd 
scenes and coarse descriptions for British palates. We 
have occasionally publications for the fireside, — these are 
only fit for the fire." 

Borrow had apparently been in some doubt about 
certain passages, for in a note headed " The Translator to 
the Public," he defends the work as moral in its general 
teaching : 

" The publication of the present volume may at first 
sight appear to require some brief explanation from the 

1 Faustus : His Life, Death and Descent into Hell. Translated 
from the German. London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1825, 
pages xxii., 251. Coloured Plate. 

2 A letter from Borrow to the publishers, which Dr Knapp quotes, 
and dates 15th September 1825, but without giving his reasons, was 
written from Norwich, and runs : 

Dear Sir, — 

As your bill will become payable in a few days> I am 
willing to take thirty copies of Faustus instead of the money. The 
book has been burnt in both the libraries here, and, as it has been 
talked about, I may, perhaps, be able to dispose of some in the course 
of a year or so. — Yours, G. Borrow. 



54 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1825 

Translator, inasmuch as the character of the incidents may 
justify such an expectation on the part of the reader. It 
is, therefore, necessary to state that, although scenes of vice 
and crime are here exhibited, it is merely in the hope that 
they may serve as beacons, to guide the ignorant and 
unwary from the shoals on which they might otherwise 
be wrecked. The work, when considered as a whole, is 
strictly moral." 

It must be confessed that Faustus does not err on the 
side of restraint. Many of its scenes might appear " lewd 
. . . and coarse " to anyone who for a moment allowed his 
mind to wander from the morality of " its general teaching." 
The attacks upon the lax morals of the priesthood must 
have proved particularly congenial to the translator. 

The more Borrow read his translations of Ab Gwilym, 
the more convinced he became of their merit and the 
profit they would bring to him who published them. The 
booksellers, however, with singular unanimity, declined the 
risk of introducing to the English public either Welsh or 
Danish ballads ; and their translator became so shabby in 
consequence, that he refrained from calling upon his friend 
Arden, for whom he had always cherished a very real 
friendship. He began to lose heart. His energy left him 
and with it went hope. He was forced to review his 
situation. Authorship had obviously failed, and he found 
himself with no reasonable prospect of employment. 

There is no episode in Borrow's life that has so 
exercised the minds of commentators and critics as his 
account of the book he terms in Lavengro, The Life and 
Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller. Some 
dismiss the whole story as apocryphal ; others see in it 
a grain of truth distorted into something of vital import- 
ance ; whilst there are a number of earnest Borrovians 
that accept the whole story as it is written. Dr Knapp 
has said that Joseph Sell "was not a book at all, and 
the author of it never said that it was." This was 
obviously an error, for the bookseller is credited with 
saying, " I think I shall venture on sending your 



in.] THE MYSTERY OF JOSEPH SELL 55 

book to the press," 1 referring to it as a "book" four 
times in nine lines. Again, in another place, Borrow 
describes how he rescued himself " from peculiarly- 
miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original 
book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have 
written his Rasselas and Beckford his Vathek. 2 This 
removes all question of the Life and Adventures of Joseph 
Sell being included in a collection of short stories. The 
title would not be the same, the date is most probably 
wrongly given, as in the case of Marshland Shales ; but 
the general accuracy of the account as written seems 
to be highly probable. Many efforts have been made to 
trace the story ; but so far unsuccessfully. It must be 
remembered that Borrow loved to stretch the long arm of 
coincidence ; but he loved more than anything else a 
dramatic situation. He was always on the look out for 
effective " curtains." 

In favour of the story having been actually written, is 
the knowledge that Borrow invented little or nothing. 
Collateral evidence has shown how little he deviated from 
actual happenings, although he did not hesitate to revise 
dates or colour events. The strongest evidence, however, 
lies in the atmosphere of truth that pervades Chapters 
LV. — LVII. of Lavengro. They are convincing. At one 
time or another during his career, it would appear that 
Borrow wrote against time from grim necessity ; otherwise 
he must have been a master of invention, which every- 
thing that is known about him clearly shows that he was 
not. 

Joseph Sell has disappeared, a most careful search of 
the Registers at Stationers' Hall can show no trace of that 
work, or any book that seems to suggest it, and the con- 
temporary literary papers render no assistance. 

According to Borrow's own account, one morning on 
getting up he found that he had only half a crown in the 

1 Lavengro, page 310. 

2 The Romany Rye, Appendix, page 303. 



56 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1825 

world. It was this circumstance, coupled with the timely 
notice that he saw affixed to a bookseller's window to the 
effect that " A Novel or Tale is much wanted," that 
determined him to endeavour to emulate Dr Johnson and 
William Beckford. He had tired of " the Great City," and 
his thoughts turned instinctively to the woods and the 
fields, where he could be free to meditate and muse in 
solitude. 

When he returned to Milman Street after seeing the 
bookseller's advertisement, he found that his resources had 
been still further reduced to eighteen-pence. He was too 
proud to write home for assistance, he had broken with 
Sir Richard Phillips, and he had no reasonable expectation 
of obtaining employment of any description ; for his 
accomplishments found no place in the catalogue of every- 
day wants. He was a proper man with his hands, and 
knew some score or more languages. No matter how he 
regarded the situation, the facts were obvious. Between 
him and actual starvation there was the inconsiderable 
sum of eighteen-pence and the bookseller's advertisement. 
The gravity of the situation banished the cloud of despond- 
ency that threatened to settle upon him, and also the 
doubts that presented themselves as to whether he 
possessed the requisite ability to produce what the book- 
seller required. The all-important question was, could he 
exist sufficiently long on eighteen-pence to complete a 
story? Sir Richard Phillips had told him to live on bread 
and water. He now did so. 

For a week he wrote ceaselessly at the Life and 
Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller. He wrote 
with the feverish energy of a man who sees the shadow of 
actual starvation cast across his manuscript. When the 
tale was finished there remained the work of revision, and 
after that, worst of all, fears lest the bookseller were already 
suited. 

Fortune, however, was kind to him, and he was success- 
ful in extracting for his story the sum of twenty pounds. 



in.] A NEW THEORY 57 

Borrow had not mixed among gypsies for nothing. He, a 
starving and unknown author, succeeded in extracting 
from a bookseller twenty pounds for a story, twice the 
amount offered by Sir Richard Phillips for a novel on 
the lines of The Dairyman's Daughter. It was an 
achievement. 

The first argument against the story, as related by 
Borrow, is that he was not without resources at the time. 
Why should he be so impoverished a few weeks after 
receiving payment for Celebrated Trials ? 1 Above all, 
why did he not realise upon Simpkin & Marshall's bill for 
Faustus ? He would have experienced no difficulty in 
discounting a bill accepted by such a firm. It seems hardly 
conceivable that he should preserve this piece of paper 
when he had only eighteen-pence in the world. Everything 
seems to point to the fact that in May 1825 Borrow was 
not in want of money, and if he were not, why did he 
almost kill himself by writing the Life and Adventures of 
foseph Sell? Again, at that period he had met with no 
adventures such as might be included in the life of a 
" Great Traveller," and Borrow was not an inventive 
writer. Later he possessed plenty of material ; for there 
can be no question that he roamed about the world for 
a considerable portion of those seven mysterious years 
of his life that came to be known as the " Veiled Period." 
His accuracy as to actual occurrences has been so em- 
phasised that this particular aigument holds considerable 
significance. 

The strongest evidence against foseph Sell having 
been written in 1825, however, lies in the fact that Green- 
wich Fair was held on 23rd May, and not 12th May, as given 
by Dr Knapp. By his error Dr Knapp makes Borrow 
leave London a day before the Fair took place that 

1 Probably it was only a portion of the whole amount of ^50 that 
Borrow drew after the completion of the work. One thing is assured, 
that Sir Richard Phillips was too astute a man to pay the whole 
amount before the completion of the work. 



58 THE ROAD TO AUTHORSHIP [1825 

he describes. Borrow must have left London on the day 
following Greenwich Fair (24th May). If he left later, 
then those things which tend to confirm his story of 
the life in the Dingle do not fit in, as will be seen. He 
certainly could not have left before Greenwich Fair was 
held. 

In one of his brother John's letters, written at the end 
of 1829, there is a significant passage, " Let me know how 
you sold your manuscript." 1 What manuscript is it that 
is referred to ? There is no record of George having sold 
a manuscript in the autumn of 1829. The passage can 
scarcely have reference to some article or translation ; it 
seems to suggest something of importance, an event in 
George's life that his brother is anxious to know more 
about. If this be Joseph Sell, then it explains where 
Borrow got the money from to go up to London at the 
end of 1829, when he entered into relations with Dr 
Bowring. It is merely a theory, it must be confessed ; but 
there is certain evidence that seems to support it. In the 
first place, Borrow was a chronicler before all else. He pos- 
sessed an amazing memory and a great gift for turning his 
experiences into literary material. If he coloured facts, he 
appears to have done so unconsciously, to judge from those 
portions of The Bible in Spain that were covered by letters 
to the Bible Society. Not only are the facts the same, but, 
with very slight changes, the words in which he relates 
them. He never hesitated to change a date if it served 
his purpose, much as an artist will change the posi- 
tion of a tree in a landscape to suit the exigencies of 
composition. His five volumes of autobiography bristle 
with coincidences so amazing that, if they were actually 
true, he must have been the most remarkable genius on 
record for attracting to himself strange adventures. He 
met the sailor son of the old Apple-Woman returning from 
his enforced exile; Murtagh tells him of how the postilion 
frightened the Pope at Rome by his denunciation, a story 
1 Dr Knapp's Life of George Borrow, i., page 141. 



in.] CURIOUS COINCIDENCES 59 

Borrow had already heard from the postilion himself; the 
Hungarian at Horncastle narrates how an Armenian once 
silenced a Moldavian, the same Moldavian whom Borrow 
had encountered in London ; the postilion meets the man 
in black again. There are scores of such coincidences, 
which must be accepted as dramatic embellishments. 



CHAPTER IV 

MAY — SEPTEMBER 1 825 

T?OURTEEN months in London had shown Borrow 
-*■ how hard was the road of authorship. He confessed 
that he was not " formed by nature to be a pallid indoor 
student." "The peculiar atmosphere of the big city" did 
not agree with him, and this fact, together with the anxiety 
and hard work of the past twelve months, caused him to 
flag, and his first thought was how to recover his health. 
He was disillusioned as to the busy world, and the oppor- 
tunities it offered to a young man fired with ambition 
to make a stir in it. He determined to leave London, 
which he did towards the end of May, 1 first despatching 
his trunk "containing a few clothes and books to the old 
town [Norwich]." He struck out in a south-westerly 
direction, musing on his achievements as an author, and 
finding that in having preserved his independence and 
health, he had " abundant cause to be grateful." 

Throughout his life Borrow was hypnotised by inde- 
pendence. Like many other proud natures, he carried 
his theory of independence to such an extreme as to 
become a slave to it and render himself unsociable, 
sometimes churlish. It was this virtue carried to excess 
that drove Borrow from London. He must tell men 
what was in his mind, and his one patron, Sir Richard 
Phillips, he had mortally offended in this manner. 

1 Dr Knapp gives the date as the 22nd ; but Mr John Sampson 
makes the date the 24th, which seems more likely to be correct. 

GO 



iv.] THE EVIL EYE 61 

Finding that he was unequal to much fatigue, after a few 
hours' walking he hailed a passing coach, which took him as 
far as Amesbury in Wiltshire. From here he walked to 
Stonehenge and on to Salisbury, " inspecting the curi- 
osities of the place," and endeavouring by sleep and good 
food to make up the wastage of the last few months. The 
weather was fine and his health and spirits rapidly 
improved as he tramped on, his " daily journeys varying 
from twenty to twenty - five miles." He encountered 
the mysterious stranger who " touched " against the 
evil eye. F. H. Groome asserts, on the authority of 
W. B. Donne, that this was in reality William Beckford. 
Borrow must have met him at some other time and 
place, as he had already left Fonthill in 1825. It 
is, however, interesting to recall that Borrow himself 
" touched " against the evil eye. Mr Watts - Dunton 
has said : 

" There was nothing that Borrow strove against with 
more energy than the curious impulse, which he seems to 
have shared with Dr Johnson, to touch the objects along 
his path in order to save himself from the evil chance. 
He never conquered the superstition. In walking through 
Richmond Park he would step out of his way constantly to 
touch a tree, and he was offended if the friend he was with 
seemed to observe it." x 

The chance meeting with Jack Slingsby (in fear of his 
life from the Flaming Tinman, and bound by oath not to 
continue on the same beat) gave Borrow the idea of 
buying out Slingsby, beat, plant, pony and all. " A tinker 
is his own master, a scholar is not," z he remarks, and then 
proceeds to draw tears and moans from the dispirited 
Slingsby and his family by a description of the joys of 
tinkering, "the happiest life under heaven . . . pitching 
your tent under the pleasant hedge-row, listening to the 
song of the feathered tribes, collecting all the leaky 
kettles in the neighbourhood, soldering and joining, 
1 The Atkenceum, 25th March 1899. 2 Lavengro, page 362. 



62 FAREWELL TO LONDON [1825 

earning your honest bread by the wholesome sweat of 
your brow." l 

By the expenditure of five pounds ten shillings, plus the 
cost of a smock-frock and some provisions, George Borrow, 
linguist, editor and translator, became a travelling 
tinker. With his dauntless little pony, Ambrol, he set out, 
a tinkering Ulysses, indifferent to what direction he took, 
allowing the pony to go whither he felt inclined. At 
first he experienced some apprehension at passing the 
night with only a tent or the stars as a roof. Rain fell to 
mar the opening day of the adventure, but the pony, with 
unerring instinct, led his new master to one of Slingsby's 
usual camping grounds. 

In the morning Borrow fell to examining what it was 
beyond the pony and cart that his five pounds ten shillings 
had purchased. He found a tent, a straw mattress and a 
blanket, " quite clean and nearly new." There were also a 
frying-pan, a kettle, a teapot (broken in three pieces) and 
some cups and saucers. The stock-in-trade " consisted of 
various tools, an iron ladle, a chafing-pan, and small 
bellows, sundry pans and kettles, the latter being of tin, 
with the exception of one which was of copper, all in a 
state of considerable dilapidation." The pans and kettles 
were to be sold after being mended, for which purpose 
there was " a block of tin, sheet-tin, and solder." But most 
precious of all his possessions was " a small anvil and 
bellows of the kind which are used in forges, and two 
hammers such as smiths use, one great, and the other 
small." 2 Borrow had learned the blacksmith's art when in 
Ireland, and the anvil, bellows and smith's hammers were 
to prove extremely useful. 

A few days after pitching his tent, Borrow received from 
his old enemy Mrs Heme, Mr Petulengro's mother-in-law, 
a poisoned cake, which came very near to ending his career. 
He then encountered the Welsh preacher ( " the worthiest 
creature I ever knew " ) and his wife, who were largely 
1 Lavcngro, page 362. '* Lavcngro, page 374. 



IV.] MUMBER LANE 63 

instrumental in saving him from Mrs Heme's poison. 
Having remained with his new friends for nine days, he 
accompanied them as far as the Welsh border, where he 
confessed himself the translator of Ab Gwilym, giving as 
an excuse for not accompanying them further that it was 

" neither fit nor proper that I cross into Wales at this time, 
and in this manner. When I go into Wales, I should wish 
to go in a new suit of superfine black, with hat and beaver, 
mounted on a powerful steed, black and glossy, like that 
which bore Greduv to the fight of Catraeth. I should wish, 
moreover," he continued, " to see the Welshmen assembled 
on the border ready to welcome me with pipe and fiddle, 
and much whooping and shouting, and to attend me to 
Wrexham, or even as far as Machynllaith, where I should 
wish to be invited to a dinner at which all the bards should 
be present, and to be seated at the right hand of the 
president, who, when the cloth was removed, should arise, 
and amidst cries of silence, exclaim — ' Brethren and 
Welshmen, allow me to propose the health of my most 
respectable friend the translator of the odes of the great 
Ab Gwilym, the pride and glory of Wales.'" l 

He returned with Mr Petulengro, who directed him to 
Mumber Lane (Mumper's Dingle), near Willenhall, in 
Staffordshire, " the little dingle by the side of the great 
north road." Here Borrow encamped and shod little 
Ambrol, who kicked him over as a reminder of his 
clumsiness. 

He had refused an invitation from Mr Petulengro to 
become a Romany ^<rz/and take a Romany bride, the grand- 
daughter of his would-be murderess, who "occasionally 
talked of" him. He yearned for solitude and the country's 
quiet. He told Mr Petulengro that he desired only some 
peaceful spot where he might hold uninterrupted com- 
munion with his own thoughts, and practise, if so inclined, 
either tinkering or the blacksmith's art, and he had been 
directed to Mumper's Dingle, which was to become the 
setting of the most romantic episode in his life. 

In the dingle Borrow experienced one of his worst 
1 Lavengro, pages 431-2. 



64 FAREWELL TO LONDON [1825 

attacks of the " Horrors" — the " Screaming Horrors." He 
raged like a madman, a prey to some indefinable, intangible 
fear ; clinging to his " little horse as if for safety and 
protection." * He had not recovered from the prostrating 
effects of that night of tragedy when he was called upon to 
fight Anselo Heme, " the Flaming Tinman," who somehow 
or other seemed to be part of the bargain he had made 
with Jack Slingsby, and encounter the queen of road-girls, 
Isopel Berners. The description of the fight has been 
proclaimed the finest in our language, and by some the 
finest in the world's literature. 

Isopel Berners is one of the great heroines of English 
Literature. As drawn by Borrow, with her strong arm, 
lion-like courage and tender tearfulness, she is unique. 
However true or false the account of her relations with 
Borrow may be, she is drawn by him as a living woman. 
He was incapable of conceiving her from his imagination. 
It may go unquestioned that he actually met an Isopel 
Berners,*- 2 but whether or no his parting from her was as 
heart-rendingly tragic as he has depicted it, is open to very 
grave question. 

With this queen of the roads he seems to have been 
less reticent and more himself than with any other of his 
vagabond acquaintance, not excepting even Mr Petulengro. 
To the handsome, tall girl with " the flaxen hair, which 
hung down over her shoulders unconfined," and the 
" determined but open expression," he showed a more 
amiable side of his character ; yet he seems to have 
treated her with no little cruelty. He told her about 
himself, how he " had tamed savage mares, wrestled with 
Satan, and had dealings with ferocious publishers," bring- 
ing tears to her eyes, and when she grew too curious, he 

1 Lavengro, page 451. 

2 Mr Watts-Dunton in a review of Dr Knapp's Life of Borrow 
says that she " was really an East-Anglian road-girl of the finest 
type, known to the Boswells, and remembered not many years ago." 
—Athenaum, 25th March 1899. 



iv.] ISOPEL BERNERS 65 

administered an antidote in the form of a few Armenian 
numerals. If his Autobiography is to be credited, Isopel 
loved him, and he was aware of it ; but the knowledge did 
not hinder him from torturing the poor girl by insisting 
that she should decline the verb "to love" in Armenian. 

Borrow's attitude towards Isopel was curiously com- 
plex ; he seemed to find pleasure in playing upon her 
emotions. At times he appeared as deliberately brutal 
to her, as to the gypsy girl Ursula when he talked with 
her beneath the hedge. He forced from Isopel a passion- 
ate rebuke that he sought only to vex and irritate " a 
poor ignorant girl . . . who can scarcely read or write." 
He asked her to marry him, but not until he had convinced 
her that he was mad. How much she had become part 
of his life in the dingle he did not seem to realise until 
after she had left him. Isopel Berners was a woman 
whose character was almost masculine in its strength ; 
but she was prepared to subdue her spirit to his, wished 
to do so even. With her strength, however, there was 
wisdom, and she left Borrow and the dingle, sending him 
a letter of farewell that was certainly not the composition 
of " a poor girl " who could " scarcely read or write." The 
story itself is in all probability true ; but the letter rings 
false. Isopel may have sent Borrow a letter of farewell, 
but not the one that appears in The Romany Rye. 

Among Borrow's papers Dr Knapp discovered a frag- 
ment of manuscript in which Mr Petulengro is shown 
deliberating upon the expediency of emulating King 
Pharaoh in the number of his wives. Mrs Petulengro 
desires " a little pleasant company," and urges her husband 
to take a second spouse. He proceeds : — 

" Now I am thinking that this here Bess of yours 
would be just the kind of person both for my wife and 
myself. My wife wants something gorgiko, something 
genteel. Now Bess is of blood gorgious ; if you doubt it, 
look at her face, all full of pawno ratter, white blood, 
brother ; and as for gentility, nobody can make exceptions 

E 



66 FAREWELL TO LONDON [1825 

to Bess's gentility, seeing she was born in the workhouse 
of Melford the Short." 

Mr Petulengro sees in Bess another advantage. If 
" the Flaming Tinman " x were to descend upon them, as 
he once did, with the offer to fight the best of them for 
nothing, and Tawno Chikno were absent, who was to fight 
him ? Mr Petulengro could not do so for less than five 
pounds ; but with Bess as a second wife the problem 
would be solved. She would fight " the Flaming Tinman." 

This proves nothing, one way or the other, and can 
scarcely be said to " dispel any allusions," as Dr Knapp 
suggests, or confirm the story of Isopel. Why did Borrow 
omit it from Lavengro ? Not from caprice surely. It 
has been stated that those who know the gypsies can 
vouch for the fact that no such suggestion could have 
been made by a gypsy woman. 

It would appear that Isopel Berners existed, but the 
account of her given by Borrow in Lavengro and The 
Romany Rye is in all probability coloured, just as her 
stature was heightened by him. If she were taller than 
he, she must have appeared a giantess. Borrow was an 
impressionist, and he has probably succeeded far better 
in giving a faithful picture of Isopel Berners than if he 
had been photographically accurate in his measurements. 

According to Borrow's own account, he left Willenhall 
mounted upon a fine horse, purchased with money lent 
to him by Mr Petulengro, a small valise strapped to the 
saddle, and "some desire to meet with one of those 
adventures which upon the roads of England are generally 
as plentiful as blackberries." From this point, however, 
The Romany Rye becomes dangerous as autobiography.- 

1 Mr Petulengro is made to say the " Flying Tinker." 
- Dr Knapp sees in the account of Murtagh's story of his travels 
Borrow's own adventures during 1826-7, Dut there is no evidence in 
support of this theory. Another contention of Dr Knapp's is more 
likely correct, viz., that the story of Finn MacCoul was that told him 
by Cronan the Cornish guide during the excursion to Land's End. 



iv.] THE LOAN OF FIFTY COTTORS 67 

For one thing, it was unlike Borrow to remain in 
debt, and it is incredible that he should have ridden 
away upon a horse purchased with another man's money, 
without any set purpose in his mind. Therefore the story 
of his employment at the Swan Inn, Stafford, where he 
found his postilion friend, and the subsequent adventures 
must be reluctantly sacrificed. They do not ring true, 
nor do they fit in with the rest of the story. That he 
experienced such adventures is highly probable ; but it 
is equally probable that he took some liberty with the 
dates. 

Up to the point where he purchases the horse, Borrow's 
story is convincing ; but from there onwards it seems to 
go to pieces, that is as autobiography. The arrival of 
Ardry (Arden) at the inn, 1 passing through Stafford on his 
way to Warwick to be present at a dog and lion fight that 
had already taken place (26th July), is in itself enough to 
shake our confidence in the whole episode of the inn. In 
The Gypsies of Spain Mr Petulengro is made to say : 

" I suppose you have not forgot how, fifteen years ago, 
when you made horseshoes in the little dingle by the side 
of the great north road, I lent you fifty cottors [guineas] to 
purchase the wonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper with 
the green Newmarket coat, which three days after you 
sold for two hundred. Well, brother, if you had wanted 
the two hundred instead of the fifty, I could have lent 
them to you, and would have done so, for I knew you 
would not be long pazorrhus [indebted] to me." 2 

It seems more in accordance with Borrow's character 
to repay the loan within three days than to continue in 

1 It will be remembered that in The Rotnany Rye Borrow takes 
his horse to the Swan Inn at Stafford, meets his postilion friend and 
is introduced by him to the landlord, with the result that he arranges 
to act as "general superintendent of the yard," and keep the hay and 
corn account. In return he and his horse are to be fed and lodged. 
Here Borrow encounters Francis Ardry, on his way to see the dog 
and lion fight at Warwick, and the man in black. 

2 The Vypsies of Spain, page 360. 



68 FAREWELL TO LONDON [1825 

Mr Petulengro's debt for weeks, at one time making no 
actual effort to realise upon the horse. The question as 
to whether Borrow received a hundred and fifty (as he 
himself states) or two hundred pounds is immaterial. 
It is quite likely that he sold the horse before he left 
the dingle, and that the adventures he narrates may be 
true in all else save the continued possession of his steed, 
that is, with the exception of the Francis Ardry episode, 
the encounter with the man in black, and the arrival at 
Horncastle during the fair. If Borrow left London on 
24th May, and he could not have left earlier, as has been 
shown, he must have visited the Fair (Tamworth) with 
Mr Petulengro on 26th July, and set out from Willenhall 
about 2nd August. 

It has been pointed out by that distinguished scholar 
and gentleman-gypsy, Mr John Sampson, 1 that as the 
Horse Fair at Horncastle was held I2th-2ist August, if 
Borrow took the horse there it could not have been in the 
manner described in The Romany Rye, where he is shown 
as spending some considerable time at the inn, if we may 
judge by the handsome cheque (£10) offered to him by 
the landlord as a bonus on account of his services. Then 
there was the accident and the consequent lying-up at the 
house of the man who knew Chinese, but could not tell 
what o'clock it was. To confirm Borrow's itinerary all this 
must have been crowded into less than three weeks, fully a 
third of which Borrow spent in recovering from his fall. 
This would mean that for less than a fortnight's work, the 
innkeeper offered him ten pounds as a gratuity, in 
addition to the bargain he had made, which included the 
horse's keep. 

Mr Sampson has supported his itinerary with several 
very important pieces of evidence. Borrow states in 
Lavengro that " a young moon gave a feeble light " as he 
mounted the coach that was to take him to Amesbury. 

1 Introduction to The Romany Rye in The Little Library, 
Methuen & Co., Ltd. 



iv.] AMBITION 69 

The moon was in its first quarter on 24th May. There 
actually was a great thunderstorm in the Willenhall district 
about the time that Borrow describes (18th July). It is 
Mr Sampson also who has identified the fair to which 
Borrow went with the gypsies as that held at Tamworth 
on 26th July. 

Whatever else Borrow may have been doing immedi- 
ately after leaving the dingle, he appears to have been 
much occupied in speculating as to the future. Was he 
not "sadly misspending his time?" He was forced to 
the conclusion that he had done nothing else throughout 
his life but misspend his time. He was ambitious. He 
chafed at his narrow life. " Oh ! what a vast deal may 
be done with intellect, courage, riches, accompanied by 
the desire of doing something great and good ! " 1 he 
exclaims, and his thoughts turned instinctively to the 
career of his old school-fellow, Rajah Brooke of Sarawak. 2 
He was now, by his own confession, " a moody man, 
bearing on my face, as I well knew, the marks of my 
strivings and my strugglings, of what I had learnt and 
unlearnt/' 3 He recognised the possibilities that lay in 
every man, only awaiting the hour when they should be 
called forth. He believed implicitly in the power of the 
will. 4 He possessed ambition and a fine workable theory 
of how success was to be obtained ; but he lacked 
initiative. He expected fortune to wait for him on the 
high-road, just as he knew adventures awaited him. He 
would not go "across the country," to use a phrase of 
the time common to postilions. He was too independent, 
perhaps too sensitive of being patronised, to seek 
employment. That he cared " for nothing in this world 
but old words and strange stories," was an error into 

1 The Roma?iy Rye, page 162. 2 The Romany Rye, page 162. 

3 The Romany Rye, page 50. 

4 " Let but the will of a human being be turned to any particular 
object, and it is ten to one that sooner or later he achieves it." 
— Lavengro, page 16. 



70 FAREWELL TO LONDON [1825 

which his friend Mr Petulengro might well fall. The 
mightiness of the man's pride could be covered only by a 
cloak of assumed indifference. He must be independent 
of the world, not only in material things, but in those 
intangible qualities of the spirit. It was this that lost 
him Isopel Berners, whose love he awakened by a strong 
right arm and quenched with an Armenian noun. Again, 
his independence stood in the way of his happiness. A 
man is a king, he seemed to think, and the attribute of 
kings is their splendid isolation, their godlike solitude. 
If his Ego were lonely and crying out for sympathy, 
Borrow thought it a moment for solitude, in which to 
discipline his insurgent spirit. The " Horrors " were the 
result of this self-repression. When they became unbear- 
able, his spirit broke down, the yearning for sympathy and 
affection overmastered him, and he stumbled to his little 
horse in the desolate dingle, and found comfort in the 
faithful creature's whinny of sympathy and its affectionate 
licking of his hand. The strong man clung to his dumb 
brute friend as a protection against the unknown horror — 
the screaming horror that had gripped him. 

One quality Borrow possessed in common with many 
other men of strange and taciturn personality. He could 
always make friends when he chose. Ostlers, scholars, 
farmers, gypsies ; it mattered not one jot to him what, 
or who they were. He could earn their respect and 
obtain their good-will, if he wished to do so. He 
demanded of men that they should have done things, 
or be capable of doing things. They must know every- 
thing there was to be known about some one thing ; and 
the ostler, than whom none could groom a horse better, 
was worthy of being ranked with the best man in the 
land. He demanded of every man that he should justify 
his existence, and was logical in his attitude, save in the 
insignificant particular that he applied the same rule to 
himself only in theory. 

He was shrewd and a good judge of character, 



iv.] A CENSORED BOOK 71 

provided it were Protestant character, and could hold his 
own with a Jew or a Gypsy. He was fully justified in his 
boast of being able to take "precious good care of" 
himself, and "drive a precious hard bargain"; yet these 
qualities were not to find a market until he was thirty 
years of age. 

Sometime during the autumn (1825) Borrow returned 
to Norwich, where he busied himself with literary affairs, 
among other things writing to the publishers of Faustus 
about the bill that was shortly to fall due. The fact of 
the book having been destroyed at both the Norwich 
libraries, gave him the idea that he might make some 
profit by selling copies of the suppressed volume. Hence 
his offer to Simpkin & Marshall to take copies in lieu of 
money. 



CHAPTER V 

SEPTEMBER 1 825 — DECEMBER 1832 

FROM the autumn of 1825 until the winter of 1832, 
when he obtained an introduction to the British & 
Foreign Bible Society, only fragmentary details of Borrow's 
life exist. He decided to keep sacred to himself the 
" Veiled Period," as it came to be called. In all probability 
it was a time of great hardship and mortification, and he 
wished it to be thought that the whole period was devoted 
to " a grand philological expedition," or expeditions. 
There is no doubt that some portion of the mysterious 
epoch was so spent, but not all. Many of the adventures 
ascribed to characters in Lavengro and The Romany Rye 
were, most probably, Borrow's own experiences during 
that period of mystery and misfortune. Time after time 
he was implored to " lift up a corner of the curtain " ; but 
he remained obdurate, and the seven years are in his life 
what the New Orleans days were in that of Walt Whitman. 
Soon after his return to Norwich, Borrow seems to 
have turned his attention to the manuscripts in the green 
box. In the days of happy augury, before he had 
quarrelled with Sir Richard Phillips, there had appeared 
in The Monthly Magazine the two following paragraphs : — 

" We have heard and seen much of the legends and 
popular superstitions of the North, but, in truth, all the 
exhibitions of these subjects which have hitherto appeared 
in England have been translations from the German. Mr 
Olaus Borrow, who is familiar with the Northern Languages, 

72 



v.] LITERARY ACTIVITY 73 

proposes, however, to present these curious reliques of 
romantic antiquity directly from the Danish and Swedish, 
and two elegant volumes of them now printing will appear 
in September. They are highly interesting in themselves, 
but more so as the basis of most of the popular supersti- 
tions of England, when they were introduced during the 
incursions and dominion of the Danes and Norwegians." 
(ist September 1824.) 

" We have to acknowledge the favour of a beautiful 
collection of Danish songs and ballads, of which a specimen 
will be seen among the poetical articles of the present 
month. One, or more, of these very interesting transla- 
tions will appear in each succeeding number." (ist 
December 1824.) 

It seems to have been Borrow's plan to run his ballads 
serially through The Monthly Magazine and then to 
publish them in book-form. His initial contribution to 
The Monthly Magazine had appeared in October 1823. 
The first of the articles, entitled " Danish Traditions and 
Superstitions," appeared August 1824, and continued, with 
the omission of one or two months, until December 1825, 
there being in all nine articles ; but there was only one 
instalment of " Danish Songs and Ballads." l 

Borrow was determined that these ballads, at least, 
should be published, and he set to work to prepare them 
for the press. Allan Cunningham, with whom Borrow was 
acquainted, contributed, at his request, a metrical dedica- 
tion. The volume appeared on 10th May, in an edition of 
five hundred copies at ten shillings and sixpence each. 
It appears that some two hundred copies were subscribed 
for, thus ensuring the cost of production. The balance, or 
a large proportion of it, was consigned to John Taylor, the 
London publisher, who printed a new title-page and sold 
them at seven shillings each, probably the trade price for 
a half-guinea book. 

1 They appeared as Romantic Ballads, translated from the Danish, 
and Miscellaneous Pieces, by George Borrow. Norwich. S. Wilkin, 
1826. Included in the volume were translations f.om the Kicempe 
Viser and from Oehlenschteger. 



74 "THE VEILED PERIOD " [1826 

Cunningham wrote to Borrow advising him to send out 
freely copies for review, and with each a note saying that 
it was the translator's ultimate intention to publish an 
English version of the whole Kicempe Viser with notes ; 
also to "scatter a few judiciously among literary men." 
It is doubtful if this sage counsel were acted upon ; for 
there is no record of any review or announcement of the 
work. This in itself was not altogether a misfortune ; for 
Borrow did not prove himself an inspired translator of 
verse. Apart from the two hundred copies sold to sub- 
scribers, the book was still-born. 

After the publication of Romantic Ballads, Borrow 
appears to have returned to London, not to his old lodging 
at Milman Street, possibly on account of the associations, 
but to 26 Bryanston Street, Portman Square, from which 
address he wrote to Benjamin Haydon the following 
note : 1 — 

Dear Sir, — 

I should feel extremely obliged if you would allow 
me to sit to you as soon as possible. I am going to the 
South of France in little better than a fortnight, and I 
would sooner lose a thousand pounds than not have the 
honour of appearing in the picture. 

Yours sincerely, 

George Borrow. 

In his account of how he first became acquainted with 
Haydon, Borrow shows himself as anything but desirous 
of appearing in a picture. When John tells of the artist's 
wish to include him as one of the characters in a painting 
upon which he is engaged, Borrow replies : " I have 
no wish to appear on canvas." It is probable that in 
some way or other Haydon offended his sitter, who, 
regretting his acquiescence, antedated the episode and 

1 Correspondence and Table-Talk of B. R. Haydon. London, 
1876. The position of the letter in the Haydon Journal is between 
November 1825 and January 1826 ; but it is more likely that it was 
written some months later. Unfortunately, Borrow's portrait cannot 
be traced in any of Haydon's pictures. 



v.] A GREAT TRAVELLER 75 

depicted himself as refusing the invitation. Such a 
liberty with fact and date would be quite in accordance 
with Borrow's autobiographical methods. 

Borrow wrote in Lavengro, " I have been a wanderer 
the greater part of my life ; indeed I remember only 
two periods, and these by no means lengthy, when I was, 
strictly speaking, stationary." x One of the " two periods " 
was obviously the eight years spent at Norwich, 1816-24, 
the other is probably the years spent at Oulton. Thus 
the "Veiled Period" may be assumed to have been one of 
wandering. The seven years are gloomy and mysterious, 
but not utterly dark. There is a hint here, a suggestion 
there — a letter or a paragraph, that gives in a vague 
way some idea of what Borrow was doing, and where. 
It seems comparatively safe to assume that after the 
publication of Romantic Ballads he plunged into a life 
of roving and vagabondage, which, in all probability, was 
brought to an abrupt termination by either the loss 
or the exhaustion of his money. Anything beyond this 
is pure conjecture. 2 

After he became associated with the British & Foreign 
Bible Society, his movements are easily accounted for ; 
but all we have to guide us as to what countries he 
had seen before 1833 is an occasional hint. He casually 
admits having been in Italy, 3 at Bayonne, 4 Paris, 5 Madrid, 
the south of France. 7 " I have visited most of the 
principal capitals of the world," he writes in 1S43 ; and 
again in the same year, " I have heard the ballad of 

1 Lavengro, page 9. 

2 There was a tradition that Borrow became a foreign corre- 
spondent for the Morning Herald, and it was in this capacity that he 
travelled on the Continent in 1826-7 ; Dut Dr Knapp clearly showed 
that such a theory was untenable. 

8 The Gypsies of Spain, page 1 1 . 

4 The Bible in Spain, page 219. 

5 Letter to his mother, August 1833. 
c The Bible in Spain, page 172. 

7 The Gypsies of Spain, page 31. 



76 "THE VEILED PERIOD 11 [1827-9 

Alonzo Guzman chanted in Danish, by a hind in the 
wilds of Jutland." 1 "I have lived in different parts of 
the world, much amongst the Hebrew race, and I am 
well acquainted with their words and phraseology," 2 he 
writes ; and on another occasion : " I have seen gypsies 
of various lands, Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish ; and 
I have also seen the legitimate children of most countries 
of the world." 3 An even more significant admission is 
that made when Colonel Elers Napier, whom Borrow 
met in Seville in 1839, enquired where he had obtained 
his knowledge of Moultanee. " Some years ago, in 
Moultan," was the reply ; then, as if regretting that 
he had confessed so much, showed by his manner that 
he intended to divulge nothing more. 4 

" Once, during my own wanderings in Italy," Borrow 
writes, " I rested at nightfall by the side of a kiln, the 
air being piercingly cold ; it was about four leagues from 
Genoa." 5 Again, "Once in the south of France, when 
I was weary, hungry, and penniless, I observed one of 
these last patterans 6 [a cross marked in the dust], and 
following the direction pointed out, arrived at the resting- 
place of 'certain Bohemians,' by whom I was received 
with kindness and hospitality, on the faith of no other 
word of recommendation than patteran." 7 In a letter 
of introduction to the Rev. E. Whitely, of Oporto, the 
Rev. Andrew Brandram, of the Bible Society, wrote in 
1835 : " With Portugal he [Borrow] is already acquainted, 
and speaks the language." This statement is significant, 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 703. 

2 The Bible in Spain, page 67. 

3 The Gypsies of Spain, page 1 9. 

4 Excursions Along the Shores of the Mediterranean, by Lt.-Col. 
E. H. D. E. Napier. London, 1842. 

5 The Gypsies of Spain, pages 10-n. 

6 Patteran, or Patrinj a gypsy method of indicating by means of 
grass, leaves, or a mark in the dust to those behind the direction 
taken by the main body. 

7 The Gypsies of Spain, page 3 1 . 



v.] A MYSTERY 77 

for only during the " Veiled Period " could Borrow have 
visited Portugal. 

It may be argued that Borrow was merely posing 
as a great traveller, but the foregoing remarks are too 
casual, too much in the nature of asides, to be the utter- 
ances of a poseur. A man seeking to impress himself 
upon the world as a great traveller would probably have 
been a little more definite. 

The only really reliable information as to Borrow's 
movements after his arrival in London is contained in the 
note to Haydon. In all probability he went to Paris, 
where possibly he met Vidocq, the master-rogue turned 
detective. 1 It has been suggested by Dr Knapp that he 
went to Paris, and thence on foot to Bayonne and 
Madrid, after which he tramped to Pamplona, where he 
gets into trouble, is imprisoned, and is released on 
condition that he leave the country ; he proceeds towards 
Marseilles and Genoa, where he takes ship and is landed 
safely in London. The data, however, upon which this 
itinerary is constructed are too frail to be convincing. 
There is every probability that he roamed about the 
Continent and met with adventures — he was a man 
to whom adventures gravitated quite naturally — but 
the fact of his saying that he had been imprisoned on 
three occasions, and there being only two instances on 
record at the time, cannot in itself be considered 
as conclusive evidence of his having been arrested at 
Pamplona. 2 

1 If he went abroad, he certainly did so without obtaining a pass- 
port from the Foreign Office. The only passports issued to him 
between the years 1825- 1840 were : 

27th July 1833, to St Petersburg ; 

2nd November 1836 and 20th December 1838, to Spain, 
as far as the F. O. Registers show. 

2 Dr Knapp takes Borrow's statement, made 29th March 1839, 
" I have been three times imprisoned and once on the point of being 
shot," as indicating that he was imprisoned at Pamplona in 1826. The 
imprisonments were September 1837, Finisterre ; May 1838, Madrid ; 



78 "THE VEILED PERIOD" [1829 

In the spring of 1827 Borrow was unquestionably at 
Norwich, for he saw the famous trotting stallion Marshland 
Shales on the Castle Hill (12th April), and did for that 
grand horse " what I would neither do for earl or baron, 
doffed my hat." 1 Borrow apparently remained with his 
mother for some months, to judge from certain entries 
(29th September to 19th November) in his hand that 
appear in her account books. 

In December 1829 he was back again in London at 
17 Great Russell Street, W.C. He was as usual eager to 
obtain some sort of work. He wrote to " the Committee 
of the Honourable and Praiseworthy Association, known 
by the name of the Highland Society ... a body animate 
with patriotism, which, guided by philosophy, produces the 
noblest results, and many of whose members stand 
amongst the very eminent in the various departments 
of knowledge." 

The project itself was that of translating into English 
" the best and most approved poetry of the Ancient and 
Modern Scoto-Gaelic Bards, with such notes on the usages 
and superstitions therein alluded to, as will enable the 
English reader to form a clear and correct idea of the 
originals." In the course of a rather ornate letter, Borrow 
offers himself as the translator and compiler of such a 
work as he suggests, avowing his willingness to accept 
whatsoever remuneration might be thought adequate 

and another unknown. The occasion on which he was nearly shot, 
which may be assumed to be connected with one of the imprisonments 
(otherwise he was more than " once nearly shot "), was at Finisterre, 
when he, with his guide, was seized as a Carlist spy "by the fisher- 
men of the place, who determined at first on shooting us." (Letter to 
Rev. A. Brandram, 15th September 1837.) 

1 The incident is given in Lavengro under date of 18 18, when 
Marshland Shales was fifteen years old. It was not, however, until 
1827 that he appeared at the Norwich Horse Fair and was put up 
for auction. " Such a horse as this we shall never see again ; a 
pity that he is so old," was the opinion of those who lifted their hats 
as a token of respect. 



v.] "THOSE SCOTCH BLACKGUARDS" 79 

compensation for his expenditure of time. Furthermore, 
he undertakes to complete the work within a period of 
two years. 

On 7th December he wrote to Dr Bowring, recently 
returned from Denmark : — 

" Lest I should intrude upon you when you are busy, 
I write to enquire when you will be unoccupied. I wish 
to show you my translation of The Death of Balder, 
Ewald's most celebrated production, which, if you approve 
of, you will perhaps render me some assistance in bringing 
forth, for I don't know many publishers. I think this will 
be a proper time to introduce it to the British public, as 
your account of Danish literature will doubtless cause a 
sensation." l 

On 29th December he wrote again : — 

" When I had last the pleasure of being at yours, you 
mentioned that we might at some future period unite our 
strength in composing a kind of Danish Anthology. . . . 
Suppose we bring forward at once the first volume of the 
Danish Anthology, which should contain the heroic super- 
natural songs of the K\icempe\ V\iser\? 

It was suggested that there should be four volumes in 
all, and the first, with an introduction that Borrow 
expressed himself as not ashamed of, was ready and 
" might appear instanter, with no further trouble to your- 
self than writing, if you should think fit, a page or two of 
introductory matter." Dr Bowring replied by return of 
post that he thought that no more than two volumes could 
be ventured on, and Borrow acquiesced, writing : " The 
sooner the work is advertised the better, for I am terribly 
afraid of being forestalled in the Kioempe Viser by some of 
those Scotch blackguards, who affect to translate from all 
languages, of which they are fully as ignorant as Lockhart 
is of Spanish." 

1 This and subsequent letters from Borrow to Sir John Bowring not 
specially acknowledged have been courteously placed at the writer's 
disposal by Mr Wilfred J. Bowring, Sir John Bowring's grandson. 



80 "THE VEILED PERIOD" [1830 

Borrow was full of enthusiasm for the project, and 
repeated that the first volume was ready, adding : "If we 
unite our strength in the second, I think we can produce 
something worthy of fame, for we shall have plenty of 
matter to employ talent upon." A later letter, which 
was written from 7 Museum Street (8th January), told 
how he had " been obliged to decamp from Russell St. 
for the cogent reason of an execution having been sent into 
the house, and I thought myself happy in escaping with my 
things." 

He drew up a prospectus, endeavouring " to assume a 
Danish style," which he submitted to his collaborator, 
begging him to " alter . . . whatever false logic has crept 
into it, find a remedy for its incoherencies, and render it fit 
for its intended purpose. I have had for the two last days 
a rising headache which has almost prevented me doing 
anything." 

It would appear that Dr Bowring did not altogether 
approve of the " Danish style," for on 14th January Borrow 
wrote, " I approve of the prospectus in every respect ; it is 
business-like, and there is nothing flashy in it. I do not 
wish to suggest one alteration. . . . When you see the 
foreign Editor," he continues, " I should feel much obliged 
if you would speak to him about my reviewing Tegner, and 
enquire whether a good article on Welsh poetry would be 
received. I have the advantage of not being a Welshman. 
I would speak the truth, and would give translations of 
some of the best Welsh poetry ; and I really believe that 
my translations would not be the worst that have been 
made from the Welsh tongue." 

The prospectus, which appeared in several publications 
ran as follows : — 

" Dr Bowring and Mr George Borrow are about to 
publish, dedicated to the King of Denmark, by His 
Majesy's permission, THE SONGS OF SCANDINAVIA, 
in 2 vols. 8vo, containing a Selection of the most interest- 
ing of the Historical and Romantic Ballads of North- 



v.] MILITARY AMBITION 81 

Western Europe, with Specimens of the Danish and 
Norwegian Poets down to the present day. 

Price to Subscribers, £1, is. — to Non-Subscribers ;£i,5s. 

The First Volume will be devoted to Ancient Popular 
Poetry ; the Second will give the choicest productions of 
the Modern School, beginning with Tullin." 1 

The Songs of Scandinavia now became to Borrow what 
the Celebrated Trials had been four years previously, a 
source of constant toil. On one occasion he writes to Dr 
Bowring telling him that he has just translated an ode " as 
I breakfasted." What Borrow lived on at this period it is 
impossible to say. It may be assumed that Mrs Borrow 
did not keep him, for, apart from the slender proportions 
of the income of the mother, the unconquerable independ- 
ence of the son must be considered ; and Borrow loved his 
mother too tenderly to allow her to deprive herself of luxuries 
even to keep him. He borrowed money from her at 
various times ; but he subsequently faithfully repaid her. 
Even John was puzzled. " You never tell me what you are 
doing," he writes to his brother at the end of 1832 ; "you 
can't be living on nothing." 

Borrow appears to have kept Dr Bowring well occupied 
with suggestions as to how that good-natured man might 
assist him. Although he is to see him on the morrow, he 
writes on the evening of 21st May regarding another idea 
that has just struck him : 

" As at present no doubt seems to be entertained of 
Prince Leopold's accepting the sovereignty of Greece, 
would you have any objection to write to him concerning 
me ? I should be very happy to go to Greece in his 
service. I do not wish to go in a civil or domestic capacity, 
and I have, moreover, no doubt that all such situations have 
been long since filled up ; I wish to go in a military one, 
for which I am qualified by birth and early habits. You 
might inform the Prince that I have been for years on the 
Commander-in-Chiefs list for a commission, but that I 
have not had sufficient interest to procure an appointment. 

1 In The Monthly Review, March 1830/there appeared among the 
literary announcements a paragraph to the same effect. 

F 



82 "THE VEILED PERIOD" [1830 

One of my reasons for wishing to reside in Greece is, that 
the mines of Eastern literature would be accessible to me. 
I should soon become an adept in Turkish, and would 
weave and transmit to you such an anthology as would 
gladden your very heart. As for the Songs of Scandinavia, 
all the ballads would be ready before departure, and as I 
should have books, I would in a few months send you 
translations of the modern Lyric Poetry. I hope this letter 
will not displease you. I do not write it from fiightiness, 
but from thoughtfulness. I am uneasy to find myself at 
four and twenty drifting on the sea of the world, and 
likely to continue so." 

On 22nd May Dr Bowring introduced Borrow to Dr 
Grundtvig, the Danish poet, who required some transcrip- 
tions done. On 7th June, Borrow wrote to Dr Bowring : 

" I have looked over Mr Gruntvig's (sic) manuscript. 
It is a very long affair, and the language is Norman 
Saxon. ^40 would not be an extravagant price for a 
transcript, and so they told him at the Museum. How- 
ever, as I am doing nothing particular at present, and as I 
might learn something from transcribing it, I would do it 
for .£20. He will call on you to-morrow morning, and then, 
if you please, you may recommend me. The character 
closely resembles the ancient Irish, so I think you can 
answer for my competency." 

At this time there were a hundred schemes seething 
through Borrow's eager brain. Hearing that " an order 
has been issued for the making a transcript of the cele- 
brated Anglo-Saxon Codex of Exeter, for the use of the 
British Museum," he applied to some unknown corre- 
spondent for his interest and help to obtain the appoint- 
ment as transcriber. The work, however, was carried out 
by a Museum official. 

Another project appears to have been to obtain a post 
at the British Museum. On 9th March 1830 he had 
written to Dr Bowring : 

" I have thought over the Museum matter, which we 
were talking about last night, and it appears to me that it 
would be the very thing for me, provided that it could be 



v.] NOTHING BUT DISCOURAGEMENT 83 

accomplished. I should feel obliged if you would deliberate 
upon the best mode of proceeding, so that when I see you 
again I may have the benefit of your advice." 

In reply Dr Bowring commended the scheme, and 
promised to assist " by every sort of counsel and exertion. 
But it would injure you," he proceeds, " if I were to take 
the initiative. [The Gibraltar house of Bowring & Murdock 
had recently failed.] Quietly make yourself master of that 
department of the Museum. We must then think of how 
best to get at the Council. If by any management they 
can be induced to ask my opinion, I will give you a 
character which shall take you to the top of Hecla itself. 
You have claims, strong ones, and I should rejoice to see 
you niched in the British Museum." 

Again failure ! Disappointment seemed to be dogging 
Borrow's footsteps at this period. For years past he had 
been seeking some sort of occupation, into which he could 
throw all that energy and determination of character that 
he possessed. He was earnest and able, and he knew that 
he only required an opportunity of showing to the world 
what manner of man he was. He seemed doomed to meet 
everywhere with discouragement ; for no one wanted him, 
just as no one wanted his translations of the glorious Ab 
Gwilym. He appeared before the world as a failure, which 
probably troubled him very little ; but there was another 
aspect of the case that was in his eyes, " the most heart- 
breaking of everything, the strange, the disadvantageous 
light in which I am aware that I must frequently have 
appeared to those whom I most love and honour." l 

On 14th September he wrote to Dr Bowring : 

" I am going to Norwich for some short time, as I am 
very unwell and hope that cold bathing in October and 
November may prove of service to me. My complaints 
are, I believe, the offspring of ennui and unsettled prospects. 
I have thoughts of attempting to get into the French 

1 From the original draft of his letter of 20th May to Dr Bowring, 
omitted from the letter itself. 



84 "THE VEILED PERIOD" [1831 

service, as I should like prodigiously to serve under Clausel 
in the next Bedouin campaign. I shall leave London next 
Sunday and will call some evening to take my leave ; I 
cannot come in the morning, as early rising kills me." 

A year later he writes again to Dr Bowring, who once 
more has been exerting himself on his friend's behalf: 

"Willow Lane, Norwich, 
ii//; September 1831. 

My Dear Sir — 

I return you my most sincere thanks for your 
kind letter of the 2nd inst., and though you have not been 
successful in your application to the Belgian authorities in 
my behalf, I know full well that you did your utmost, and 
am only sorry that at my instigation you attempted an 
impossibility. 

The Belgians seem either not to know or not to care 
for the opinion of the great Cyrus who gives this advice 
to his captains. ' Take no heed from what countries ye 
fill up your ranks, but seek recruits as ye do horses, not 
those particularly who are of your own country, but 
those of merit.' The Belgians will only have such recruits 
as are born in Belgium, and when we consider the heroic 
manner in which the native Belgian army defended the 
person of their new sovereign in the last conflict with the 
Dutch, can we blame them for their determination ? It is 
rather singular, however, that resolved as they are to be 
served only by themselves they should have sent for 5000 
Frenchmen to clear their country of a handful of Hollanders, 
who have generally been considered the most unwarlike 
people in Europe, but who, if they had fair play given 
them, would long ere this time have replanted the Orange 
flag on the towers of Brussels, and made the Belgians 
what they deserve to be, hewers of wood and drawers of 
water. 

And now, my dear Sir, allow me to reply to a very 
important part of your letter ; you ask me whether I wish 
to purchase a commission in the British service, because in 
that case you would speak to the Secretary at War about 
me. I must inform you therefore that my name has been 
for several years upon the list for the purchase of a com- 
mission, and I have never yet had sufficient interest to 
procure an appointment. If I can do nothing better I 



v.] THE ARMY AS A CAREER 85 

shall be very glad to purchase ; but I will pause two or 
three months before I call upon you to fulfil your kind 
promise. It is believed that the Militia will be embodied 
in order to be sent to that unhappy country Ireland, and 
provided I can obtain a commission in one of them, and 
they are kept in service, it would be better than spending 
£500 about one in the line. I am acquainted with the 
Colonels of the two Norfolk regiments, and I daresay that 
neither of them would have any objection to receive me. 
If they are not embodied I will most certainly apply to 
you, and you may say when you recommend me that 
being well grounded in Arabic, and having some talent for 
languages, I might be an acquisition to a corps in one of 
our Eastern Colonies. I flatter myself that I could do a 
great deal in the East provided I could once get there, 
either in a civil or military capacity ; there is much talk at 
present about translating European books into the two 
great languages, the Arabic and Persian ; now I believe 
that with my enthusiasm for these tongues I could, if 
resident in the East, become in a year or two better 
acquainted with them than any European has been yet, 
and more capable of executing such a task. Bear this in 
mind, and if before you hear from me again you should 
have any opportunity to recommend me as a proper 
person to fill any civil situation in those countries or to 
attend any expedition thither, I pray you to lay hold of it, 
and no conduct of mine shall ever give you reason to 
repent it. 

I remain, 

My Dear Sir, 
Your most obliged and obedient Servant, 

George Borrow. 

PS. — Present my best remembrances to Mrs B. and 
to Edgar, and tell them that they will both be starved. 
There is now a report in the street that twelve corn-stacks 
are blazing within twenty miles of this place. I have lately 
been wandering about Norfolk, and I am sorry to say that 
the minds of the peasantry are in a horrible state of ex- 
citement ; I have repeatedly heard men and women in the 
harvest-field swear that not a grain of the corn they were 
cutting should be eaten, and that they would as lieve be 
hanged as live. I am afraid all this will end in a famine 
and a rustic war. 



86 "THE VEILED PERIOD" [1831 

It was pride that prompted Borrow to ask Dr Bowring 
to stay his hand for the moment about a commission. 
There was no reasonable possibility of his being able to 
raise £500. Even if his mother had possessed it, which 
she did not, he would not have drained her resources of 
so large an amount. His subsequent attitude towards 
the Belgians was characteristic of him. To his acutely 
sensitive perceptions, failure to obtain an appointment 
he sought was a rebuff, and his whole nature rose up 
against what, at the moment, appeared to be an intoler- 
able slight. 

Nothing came of the project of collaboration between 
Bowring and Borrow beyond an article on Danish and 
Norwegian literature that appeared in The Foreign 
Quarterly Review (June 1830), in which Borrow supplied 
translations of the sixteen poems illustrating Bowring's 
text. In all probability the response to the prospectus 
was deemed inadequate, and Bowring did not wish to face 
a certain financial loss. 

From Borrow's own letters there is no question that 
Dr Bowring was acting towards him in a most friendly 
manner, and really endeavouring to assist him to obtain 
some sort of employment. It may be, as has been said, 
and as seems extremely probable, that Bowring used his 
" facility in acquiring and translating tongues deliberately 
as a ladder to an administrative post abroad," 1 but if 
Borrow " put a wrong construction upon his sympathy " 
and was led into " a veritable cul-de-sac of literature," 2 it 
was no fault of Bowring's. 

Borrow's relations with Dr Bowring continued to be 

1 Mr Thomas Seccombe in Bookman, February 1902. 

2 It is only fair to add that Mr Seccombe wrote without having 
seen the correspondence quoted from above. His words have 
been given as representing the opinion held by most people regard- 
ing the Borrow-Bowring dispute. It has been said that Bowring 
sought to suck Borrow's brains ; it would appear, however, that 
Borrow strove rather to make every possible use that he could of 
Bowring. 



v.] "A TERRIBLE FELLOW " 87 

most cordial for many years, as his letters show. " Pray 
excuse me for troubling you with these lines," he writes 
years later ; " I write to you, as usual, for assistance in my 
projects, convinced that you will withhold none which 
it may be in your power to afford, more especially when 
by so doing you will perhaps be promoting the happi- 
ness of our fellow-creatures." This is very significant as 
indicating the nature of the relations between the two men. 
Borrow was to experience yet another disappointment. 
A Welsh bookseller, living in the neighbourhood of 
Smithfield, commissioned him to translate into English 
Elis Wyn's The Sleeping Bard, a book printed originally 
in 1703. The bookseller foresaw for the volume a large 
sale, not only in England but in Wales ; but " on the eve 
of committing it to the press, however, the Cambrian- 
Briton felt his small heart give way within him. ' Were I 
to print it,' said he, ' I should be ruined ; the terrible 
descriptions of vice and torment would frighten the 
genteel part of the English public out of its wits, and I 
should to a certainty be prosecuted by Sir James Scarlett. 
. . Myn Diawl ! I had no idea, till I had read him in 
English, that Elis Wyn had been such a terrible fellow.' " 1 
With this Borrow had to be content and retire from 
the presence of the little bookseller, who told him he was 
" much obliged ... for the trouble you have given your- 
self on my account," 2 and his bundle of manuscript, 
containing nearly three thousand lines, the work probably 
of some months, was to be put aside for thirty years before 
eventually appearing in a limited edition. 

It cannot be determined with exactness when Borrow 
relinquished the unequal struggle against adverse circum- 
stances in London. He had met with sufficient dis- 
couragement to dishearten him from further effort. 
Perhaps his greatest misfortune was his disinclination to 
make friends with anybody save vagabonds. He could 
attract and earn the friendship of an apple-woman, 

1 Preface to The Sleeping Bard, 1 860. 2 Ibid. 



88 "THE VEILED PERIOD " [1831 

thimble-riggers, tramps, thieves, gypsies, in short with any 
vagrant he chose to speak to ; but his hatred of gentility 
was a great and grave obstacle in the way of his material 
advancement. His brother John seemed to recognise this ; 
for in 1 83 1 he wrote, " I am convinced that your want of 
success in life is more owing to your being unlike other 
people than to any other cause." 

It would appear that, finding nothing to do in London, 
Borrow once more became a wanderer. He was in 
London in March ; but on 27th, 28th, and 29th July 1830 
he was unquestionably in Paris. Writing about the 
Revolution of La Granja (August 1836) and of the energy, 
courage and activity of the war correspondents, he says : 

" I saw them [the war correspondents] during the three 
days at Paris, mingled with canaille and gamins behind 
the barriers, whilst the mitraille was flying in all directions, 
and the desperate cuirassiers were dashing their fierce 
horses against these seemingly feeble bulwarks. There 
stood they, dotting down their observations in their 
pocket-books as unconcernedly as if reporting the pro- 
ceedings of a reform meeting in Covent Garden or Fins- 
bury Square." 1 

This can have reference only to the " Three Glorious 
Days" of Revolution, 27th to 29th July 1830, during which 
Charles X. lost, and Louis-Philippe gained, a throne. He 
returned to Norwich sometime during the autumn of 
1830. 2 In November he was entering upon his epistolary 
duel with the Army Pay Office in connection with John's 
half-pay as a lieutenant in the West Norfolk Militia. 

In 1826 John had gone to Mexico, then looked upon as 
a land of promise for young Englishmen, who might 
expect to find fortunes in its silver mines. Allday, brother 
of Roger Kerrison, was there, and John Borrow determined 
to join him. Obtaining a year's leave of absence from his 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 201. 

2 Dr Knapp gives the date as during the early days of September, 
but without mentioning his authority. 



v.] "I AM A SOLICITOR MYSELF" 89 

colonel, together with permission to apply for an extension, 
he entered the service of the Real del Monte Company, 
receiving a salary of three hundred pounds a year. He 
arranged that his mother should have his half-pay, and it 
was in connection with this that George entered upon a 
correspondence with the Army Pay Office that was to 
extend over a period of fifteen months. 

Originally John had arranged for the amounts to be 
remitted to Mexico, and he sent them back again to his 
mother. This involved heavy losses in connection with 
the bills of exchange, and wishing to avoid this tax, John 
sent to his brother an official copy of a Mexican Power of 
Attorney, which George strove to persuade the Army Pay 
Office was the original. 

Tact was unfortunately not one of George Borrow's 
acquirements at this period, and in this correspondence he 
adopted an attitude that must have seriously prejudiced 
his case. " I am a solicitor myself, Sir," he states, and 
proceeds to threaten to bring the matter before Parliament. 
He writes to the Solicitor of the Treasury " as a member 
of the same honourable profession to which I was myself 
bred up," and demands whether he has not law, etc., on his 
side. The outcome of the correspondence was that the dis- 
embodied allowance was refused on the plea "that 
Lieutenant Borrow having been absent without Leave from 
the Training of the West Norfolk Militia has, under the 
provisions of the 12th Section of the Militia Pay and 
Clothing Act, forfeited his Allowance." In consequence, 
payment was made only for the amount due from 25th 
June 1829 to 24th December 1830. The whole tone of 
Borrow's letters was unfortunate for the cause he pleaded. 
He wrote to the Secretary of State for War as he might 
have written to the little Welsh bookseller with " the small 
heart." He was indignant at what he conceived to be an 
injustice, and was unable to dissemble his anger. 

George had thought of joining his brother, but had not 
received any very marked encouragement to do so. John 



90 "THE VEILED PERIOD" [1832 

despised Mexican methods. On one occasion he writes 
apropos of George's suggestion of the army, "If you can 
raise the pewter, come out here rather than that, and rob." 
One sage thing at least John is to be credited with, when 
he wrote to his brother, " Do not enter the army ; it is a 
bad spec." It would have been for George Borrow. 

Among the papers left at Borrow's death was a 
fragment of a political article in dispraise of the Radicals. 
The editorial " We " suggests that Borrow might possibly 
have been engaged in political journalism. The statement 
made by him that he " frequently spoke up for Wellington" x 
may or may not have had reference to contributions to the 
press. The fragment itself proves nothing. Many would- 
be journalists write " leaders " that never see the case- 
room. 

It is useless to speculate further regarding the period 
that Borrow himself elected to veil from the eyes, not only 
of his contemporaries, but those of another generation. Men 
who have overcome adverse conditions and achieved fame 
are not as a rule averse from publishing, or at least allowing 
to be known, the difficulties that they had to contend with. 
Borrow was in no sense of the word an ordinary man. He 
unquestionably suffered acutely during the years of failure, 
when it seemed likely that his life was to be wasted, barren 
of anything else save the acquirement of a score or more 
languages ; keys that could open literary storehouses that 
nobody wanted to explore, to the very existence of which, 
in fact, the public was frigidly indifferent. 

" Poor George. ... I wish he was making money. . . . 
He works hard and remains poor," is the comment of his 
brother John, written in the autumn of 1830. To no small 
degree Borrow was responsible for his own failure, or 
perhaps it would be more just to say that he had been 
denied many of the attributes that make for success. His 
independence was aggressive, and it offended people. Even 
with the Welsh Preacher and his wife he refused to unbend. 
1 The Romany Rye, page 362. 



v] THE BARRIER 91 

" ' What a disposition ! ' " Winifred had exclaimed, 
holding up her hands ; " ' and this is pride, genuine pride — 
that feeling which the world agrees to call so noble. Oh, 
how mean a thing is pride ! never before did I see all the 
meanness of what is called pride ! ' " 1 

This pride, magnificent as the loneliness of kings, and 
about as unproductive of a sympathetic view of life, always 
constituted a barrier in the way of Borrow's success. 
There were innumerable other obstacles : his choice of 
friends, his fierce denunciatory hatred of gentility, together 
with humbug, which he always seemed to confuse with it, 
the attacks of the " Horrors," his grave bearing, which no 
laugh ever disturbed, and, above all, his uncompromising 
hostility to the things that the world chose to consider 
excellent. The world in return could make nothing of a 
man who was a mass of moods and sensibilities, strange 
tastes and pursuits. It is not remarkable that he should 
fail to make the stir that he had hoped to make. 

With the unerring instinct of a hypersensitive nature, 
he knew his merit, his honesty, his capacity — knew that he 
possessed one thing that eventually commands success, 
which " through life has ever been of incalculable utility to 
me, and has not unfrequently supplied the place of friends, 
money, and many other things of almost equal importance 
— iron perseverance, without which all the advantages of 
time and circumstance are of very little avail in any under- 
taking." 2 It was this dogged determination that was to 
carry him through the most critical period of his life, 
enable him to earn the approval of those in whose 
interests he worked, and eventually achieve fame and 
an unassailable place in English literature. 

1 Lavengro, page 403. 2 Lavengro. page 446. 



CHAPTER VI 

JANUARY — JULY 1833 

T T is not a little curious that no one should have thought 
■*■ of putting Borrow's undoubted gifts as a linguist to 
some practical use. He himself had frequently cast his 
eyes in the direction of a political appointment abroad. 
It remained, however, for the Rev. Francis Cunningham, 1 
vicar of Lowestoft, in Suffolk, to see in this young man 
against whom the curse of Babel was inoperative, a sword 
that, in the hands of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
might be wielded with considerable effect against the 
heathen. 

Borrow appears to have become acquainted with the 
Rev. Francis Cunningham through the Skeppers of Oulton 
Hall, near Lowestoft, of whom it is necessary to give some 
account. Edmund Skepper had married Anne Breame of 
Beetley, who, on the death of her father, came into ,£9000. 
She and her husband purchased the Oulton Hall estate, 
upon which Anne Skepper seems to have been given a 
five per cent, mortgage. There were two children of the 
marriage, Breame (born 1794) and Mary (born 1796). 
The boy inherited the estate, and the girl the mortgage, 
worth about £450 per annum. Mary married Henry 
Clarke, a lieutenant in the Navy (26th July 18 17), who 
within eight months died of consumption. Two months 
later Mrs Clarke gave birth to a daughter, who was 

1 Vicar of Pakefield, in Norfolk, 1814-1830; Lowestoft, 1830-63. 
He married a sister of J. J. Gurney of Earlham Hall. 

92 



vi.] "A VERY PRODUCEABLE PERSON" 93 

christened Henrietta Mary. Mrs Clarke became 
acquainted with the Cunninghams while they were at 
Pakefield, and there is every reason to believe that she 
was instrumental in introducing Borrow to Cunningham. 
It is most probable that they met during Borrow's visit at 
Oulton Hall in November 1832. 

The Rev. Francis Cunningham appears to have been 
impressed by Borrow's talent for languages, and fully 
alive to his value to an institution such as the Bible 
Society, of which he, Cunningham, was an active member. 
He accordingly addressed l to the secretary, the Rev. 
Andrew Brandram, the following letter : 

Lowestoft Vicarage, 
27th Dec. 1832. 

My Dear Friend, — 

A young farmer in this neighbourhood has introduced 
me to-day to a person of whom I have long heard, who 
appears to me to promise so much that I am induced to 
offer him to you as a successor of Piatt and Greenfield. 2 
He is a person without University education, but who has 
read the Bible in thirteen languages. He is independent 
in circumstances, of no very defined denomination of 
Christians, but I think of certain Christian principle. 
I shall make more enquiry about him and see him 
again. Next week I propose to meet him in London, 
and I could wish that you should see him, and, if you 
please, take him under your charge for a few days. He 
is of the middle order in Society, and a very produceable 
person. 

I intend to be in town on Tuesday morning to go 
to the Socy. P. C. K. On Wednesday is Dr Wilson's 
meeting at Islington. He may be in town on Monday 
evening, and will attend to any appointment. 

1 Dr Knapp was in error when he credited J. J. Gurney with the 
introduction. In a letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 10th Feb. 1833, 
Borrow wrote, " I must obtain a letter from him [Rev. F. Cunningham] 
to Joseph Gurney." 

2 T. Pell Piatt, formerly the Hon. Librarian of the Society ; W. 
Greenfield, its lately deceased Editorial Superintendent. 



94 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE SOCIETY [1823 

Will you write me word by return of post, and believe 
me ever 

Most truly and affectionately yours, 

F. Cunningham. 

The recommendation was well-timed, for the Bible 
Society at that particular moment required such a man 
as Borrow for a Manchu-Tartar project it had in view. 
In 1 82 1 the Bible Society had commissioned Stepan 
Vasilievitch Lipovzoff, 1 of St Petersburg, to translate 
the New Testament into Manchu, the court and diplo- 
matic language of China. A year later, an edition of 
550 copies of the First Gospel was printed from type 
specially cast for the undertaking. A hundred copies 
were despatched to headquarters in London, and the 
remainder, together with the type, placed with the 
Society's bankers at St Petersburg, 2 until the time should 
arrive for the distribution of the books. 

Three years after (1824), the overflowing Neva flooded 
the cellars in which the books were stored, causing 
their irretrievable ruin, and doing serious damage to the 
type. This misfortune appeared temporarily to discourage 
the authorities at home, although Mr Lipovzoff was per- 
mitted to proceed with the work of translation, which he 
completed in two years from the date of the inundation. 

In 1832 the Rev. Wm. Swann, of the London 
Missionary Society, discovered in the famous library 
of Baron Schilling de Canstadt at St Petersburg the 

1 S. V. Lipovzoff (1773-1841) had studied Chinese and Manchu 
at the National College of Pekin, and had lived in China for 20 
years ; belonged to the Russian Foreign Office (Asiatic section) ; 
head of Board of Censors for books in Eastern languages printed in 
Russia : Corresponding member of Academy of Sciences for depart- 
ment of Oriental Literature and Antiquities. "A gentleman in the 
service of the Russian Department of Foreign Affairs, who has 
spent the greater part of an industrious life in Peking and the 
East." — J. P. H[asfeldt] in the Athenceuvi, 5th March 1836. 

- Asmus, Simondsen & Co., Sarepta House. 



\ i.] THE TRAMP TO LONDON 95 

manuscript of a Manchu translation of " the principal 
part of the Old Testament," and two books of the New. 
The discovery was considered to be so important that 
Mr Swann decided to delay his departure for his post 
in Siberia and make a transcription, which he did. The 
Manchu translation was the work of Father Puerot, 
" originally a Jesuit emissary at Pekin [who] passed the 
latter years of his life in the service of the Russian 
Mission in the capacity of physician. " x 

The immediate outcome of Mr Cunningham's letter 
was an interview between Borrow and the Bible Society's 
officials. With characteristic energy and determination, 
Borrow trudged up to London, covering the 112 miles 
on foot in 2f\ hours. His expenses by the way amounted 
to fivepence-halfpenny for the purchase of a roll, two 
apples, a pint of ale and a glass of milk. On reaching 
London he proceeded direct to the Bible Society's offices 
in Earl Street, in spite of the early hour, and there 
awaited the arrival of the Rev. Andrew Brandram 
(Secretary), and the Rev. Joseph Jowett (Literary Super- 
intendent). 

The story of Borrow's arrival at Earl Street was 
subsequently told by one of the secretaries at a provincial 
meeting in connection with the Bible Society. The Rev. 
Wentworth Webster writes : 

" I was little more than a boy when I first heard George 
Borrow spoken of at the annual dinner given by a connec- 
tion of my family to the deputation of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society in a country town near London. . . 
I can distinctly recall one of the secretaries telling of his first 
meeting with Borrow, whom he found waiting at the offices 
of the Society one morning ; — how puzzled he was by his 
appearance ; how, after he had read his letter of introduc- 
tion, he wished to while away the time until a brother 
secretary should arrive, and did not want to say anything 
to commit himself to such a strange applicant ; so he 

1 Borrow's report upon Puerot's translation, 23rd September 5th 
October, 1835. 



96 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE SOCIETY [1833 

began by politely hoping that Borrow had slept well. ! I 
am not aware that I fell asleep on the road,' was the reply ; 
I have walked from Norwich to London.' " x 

It would appear that this conference took place on 
Friday, 4th January ; for on that day there is an entry in 
the records of the Society of the loan to George Borrow of 
several books from the Society's library. On this and 
subsequent occasions, Borrow was examined as to his 
capabilities, the result appearing to be quite satisfactory. 
To judge from the books lent to Borrow, one of the 
subjects would seem to have been Arabic. 

Borrow appeared before the Committee on 14th 
January, with the result that they seemed to be "quite 
satisfied with me and my philological capabilities," which 
they judged of from the report given by the Secretary 
and his colleague. A more material sign of approval was 
found in the undertaking to defray " the expenses of my 
journey to and from London, and also of my residence in 
that city, in the most handsome manner." 2 That is to 
say, the Committee voted him the sum of ten pounds. 

Borrow had been formally asked if he were prepared 

1 The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, vol. i., July 1888 to 
October 1899. In the MS. autobiographical note he wrote later for 
Mr John Longe, Borrow stated that he walked from London to Norwich 
in November 1825. He may have performed the journey twice. 

2 Letter from Borrow to the Rev. Francis Cunningham, to whom 
he wrote on his return home, circa January, acquainting him with 
what had transpired in London, assuring him that " I am returned 
with a firm determination to exert all my energies to attain the desired 
end [the learning of Manchu] ; and I hope, Sir, that I shall have the 
benefit of your prayers for my speedy success, for the language is one 
of those which abound with difficulties against which human skill and 
labour, without the special favour of God, are as blunt hatchets 
against the oak ; and though I shall almost weary Him with my own 
prayers, I wish not to place much confidence in them, being at present 
very far from a state of grace and regeneration, having a hard and 
stony heart, replete with worldy passions, vain wishes, and all kinds 
of ungodliness ; so that it would be no wonder if God to prayers 
addressed from my lips were to turn away His head in wrath." 



vi.] "I CAN TRANSLATE MANCHU ,, 97 

to learn Manchu sufficiently well to edit, or translate, 
into that language such portions of the Scriptures as 
the Society might decide to issue, provided means of 
acquiring the language were put within his reach, and 
employment should follow as soon as he showed himself 
proficient. To this Borrow had willingly agreed. At this 
period, the idea appears to have been to execute the 
work in London. 

Shortly after appearing before the Committee Borrow 
returned to Norwich, this time by coach, with several 
books in the Manchu-Tartar dialect, including the Gospel 
of St Matthew and Amyot's Manchu-French Dictionary. 
His instructions were to learn the language and come up 
for examination in six months' time. Possibly the time 
limit was suggested by Borrow himself, for he had said 
that he believed he could master any tongue in a few 
months. 

After two or three weeks of incessant study of a 
language that Amyot says "one may acquire in five or 
six years," Borrow, who, it should be remembered, possessed 
no grammar of the tongue, wrote to Mr Jowett : 

" It is, then, your opinion that, from the lack of 
anything in the form of Grammar, I have scarcely made 
any progress towards the attainment of Manchu : x perhaps 
you will not be perfectly miserable at being informed that 
you were never more mistaken in your life. I can already, 
with the assistance of Amyot, translate Manchu with no 
great difficulty, and am perfectly qualified to write a 
critique on the version of St Matthew's Gospel, which 
I brought with me into the country. ... I will now 
conclude by beseeching you to send me, as soon as 
possible, whatever can serve to enlighten me in respect to 
Manchu Grammar, for, had I a Grammar, I should in a 
month's time be able to send a Manchu translation of 
Jonah." 

The racy style of Borrow's letters must have been 

1 Borrow always writes Mandchow, but, for the sake of uniformity, 
his spelling is corrected throughout. 

Q 



98 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE SOCIETY [1833 

something of a revelation to the Bible Society's officers, 
who seem to have shown great tact and consideration in 
dealing with their self-confident correspondent. There is 
something magnificent in the letters that Borrow wrote 
about this period ; their directness and virility, their 
courage and determination suggest, not a man who up to 
the thirtieth year of his age has been a conspicuous 
failure, as the world gauges failure ; but one who had 
grown confident through many victories and is merely 
proceeding from one success to another. 

Whilst in London, Borrow had discussed with Mr 
Brandram " the Gypsies and the profound darkness as to 
religion and morality that envolved them." l The Secretary 
told him of the Southampton Committee for the Ameliora- 
tion of the Condition of the Gypsies that had recently 
been formed by the Rev. James Crabbe for the express 
purpose of enlightening and spreading the Gospel among 
the Romanys. Furthermore, Mr Brandram, on hearing 
of Borrow's interest in, and knowledge of, the gypsies, had 
requested him immediately on his return to Norwich to 
draw up a vocabulary of Mr Petulengro's language, during 
such time as he might have free from his other studies. 
Borrow showed himself, as usual, prolific of suggestions, 
all of which involved him in additional labour. He 
enquired through Mr Jowett if Mr Brandram would 
write about him to the Southampton Committee. He 
wished to translate into the gypsy tongue the Gospel of 
St John, " which I could easily do," he tells Mr Jowett, 
" with the assistance of one or two of the old people, but 
then they must be paid, for the gypsies are more 
mercenary than the Jews." 

He also informed Mr Jowett that he had a brother 
in Mexico, subsequently assuring him that he had no 
doubt of John's willingness to assist the Society in 
" flinging the rays of scriptural light o'er that most 
benighted and miserable region." He sent to his brother, 
1 Letter to Rev. Francis Cunningham, circa January 1833. 



vt] THE NAHUATL ST LUKE 99 

at Mr Jowett's request, first a sheet, and afterwards a 
complete copy, of the Gospel of St Luke translated into 
Nahuatl, the prevailing dialect of the Mexican Indians, 
by Mariano Paz y Sanchez. 1 

In addition to learning Manchu, Borrow is credited 
with correcting and passing for press the Nahuatl version 
of St Luke. 2 The Bible Society's records, however, point 
to the fact that this work was carried through by John 
Hattersley, who later was to come up with Borrow for 
examination in Manchu. In the light of this, the 
following passage from one of John's letters is puzzling 
in the extreme : — " I have just received your letter of 
the 1 6th of February, together with your translation of 
St Luke. I am glad you have got the job, but I must 
say that the Bible Society are just throwing away their 
time." 

He goes on to explain how many dialects there are in 
Mexico. " The job " can only refer to the Mexican trans- 
lation, as, at that period, Borrow was merely studying 
Manchu. He had received no appointment from the 
Society. It may have happened that Borrow expressed a 
wish to look through the proofs and that a set was sent to 
him for this purpose ; but there seems no doubt that the 
actual official responsibility for the work rested with 
Hattersley. A very important point in support of this 
view is that there is no record of Borrow being paid 
anything in connection with this Mexican translation, 
beyond the amount of fifteen shillings and fivepence, 
which he had expended in postage on the advance sheet 
and complete copy sent to John. To judge from the 
subsequent financial arrangements between the Society 

1 Dr Knapp ascribes the translation to Dr Pazos Kanki, who 
undertook it at the instance of the Bishop of Puebla, but gives no 
authority. Dr Kanki was a native of La Paz, Peru, and translated 
St Luke into his native dialect Aimard. He had no more connection 
with Mexico than "stout Cortez ' ; with "a peak in Darien." 

- Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp, i., page 157. 



100 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE SOCIETY [1833 

and its agent, it is very improbable that he was given work 
to do without payment. 

After seven weeks' study Borrow wrote again to Mr 
Jowett : 

" I am advancing at full gallop, and . . . able to translate 
with pleasure and facility the specimens of the best authors 
who have written in the language contained in the com- 
pilation of the Klaproth. But I confess that the want of a 
Grammar has been, particularly in the beginning of my 
course, a great clog to my speed, and I have little doubt 
that had I been furnished with one I should have attained 
my present knowledge of Manchu in half the time. I was 
determined, however, not to be discouraged, and, not 
having a hatchet at hand to cut down the tree with, to 
attack it with my knife ; and I would advise every one to 
make the most of the tools which happen to be in his 
possession until he can procure better ones, and it is not 
improbable that by the time the good tools arrive he will 
find he has not much need of them, having almost 
accomplished his work." 1 

There is a hint of the difficulties he was experiencing 
in his confession that tools would still be of service to him, 
in particular "this same tripartite Grammar which Mr 
Brandram is hunting for, my ideas respecting Manchu 
construction being still very vague and wandering." 2 
There is also a request for "the original grammatical work 
of Amyot, printed in the Memoires." 3 

Borrow had been studying Manchu for seven weeks 
when, feeling that his glowing report of the progress he 
was making might be regarded as " a piece of exaggeration 
and vain boasting," he enclosed a specimen translation 
from Manchu into English. This he accompanied with an 
assurance that, if required, he could at that moment edit 
any book printed in the Manchu dialect. About this 
period Mr Jowett and his colleagues passed from one 

' Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 18th March 1833. 

2 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 18th March 1833. 

3 Letter to Rev J. Jowett, 18th March 1833. 



vi.] "I HAVE MASTERED MANCHU" 101 

sensation to another. The calm confidence of this 
astonishing man was more than justified by his perform- 
ance. His attitude towards life was strange to Earl Street. 

Nineteen weeks from the date of commencing his 
study of Manchu, Borrow wrote again to Mr Jowett with 
unmistakable triumph : " 1 have mastered Manchu, and I 
should feel obliged by your informing the Committee of 
the fact, and also my excellent friend Mr Brandram." He 
proceeds to indicate some of the many difficulties with 
which he has had to contend, the absolute difference of 
Manchu from all the other languages that he has studied, 
with the single exception of Turkish ; the number of its 
idiomatic phrases, which must of necessity be learnt off 
by heart ; the little assistance he has had in the nature 
of books. Finally he acknowledges "the assistance of 
God," and asks "to be regularly employed, for though I 
am not in want, my affairs are not in a very flourishing 
condition." 

The response to this letter was an invitation to proceed 
to London to undergo an examination. His competitor 
was John Hattersley, upon whom, in the event of Borrow's 
failure, would in all probability have devolved the duty of 
assisting Mr Lipovzoff. A Manchu hymn, a paean to the 
great Futsa, was the test. Each candidate prepared a 
translation, which was handed to the examiners, who in 
turn were to report to the Sub-Committee. Borrow 
returned to Norwich to await the result. This was most 
probably towards the end of June. 1 

1 Caroline Fox wrote in her Memories of Old Friends (1882): 
" Andrew Brandram gave us at breakfast many personal recollections 
of curious people. J. J. Gurney recommended George Borrow to 
their Committee [!] ; so he stalked up to London, and{they gave him 
a hymn to translate into the Manchu language, and the same to one 
of their own people to translate also. When compared they proved 
to be very different. When put before their reader, he had the 
candour to say that Borrow's was much the better of the two. On 
this they sent him to St Petersburg, got it printed [!] and then gave 
him business in Portugal, which he took the liberty greatly to extend, 



102 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE SOCIETY [1833 

Mr Jowett wrote encouragingly to Borrow of his 
prospects of obtaining the coveted appointment. In 
acknowledgment of this letter, Borrow dashed off a 
reply, magnificent in its confidence and manly sincerity. 
It was a defiance to the fate that had so long dogged his 
footsteps. 

" What you have written has given me great pleasure," 
he wrote, " as it holds out hope that I may be employed 
usefully to the Deity, to man, and myself. I shall be very 
happy to visit St Petersburg and to become the coadjutor 
of Lipovzoff, 1 and to avail myself of his acquirements in 
what you very happily designate a most singular language, 
towards obtaining a still greater proficiency in it. I flatter 
myself that I am for one or two reasons tolerably well 
adapted for the contemplated expedition, for besides a 
competent knowledge of French and German, I possess 
some acquaintance with Russian, being able to read with- 
out much difficulty any printed Russian book, and I have 
little doubt that after a few months intercourse with the 
natives, I should be able to speak it fluently. It would ill 
become me to bargain like a Jew or a Gypsy as to terms ; 
all I wish to say on that point is, that I have nothing of 
my own, having been too long dependent on an excellent 
mother, who is not herself in very easy circumstances." 

Whilst still waiting for the confirmation by the General 
Committee of the Sub-Committee's resolution, which was 
favourable to Borrow, Mr Jowett wrote to him (5th July), 
telling him how good were his prospects ; but warning 
him not to be too confident of success. The Sub- 
Committee had recommended that Borrow's services 
should be engaged that he might go to St Peters- 
burg and assist Mr Lipovzoff in editing St Luke and 
the Acts and any other portions of the New Testament 
that it was thought desirable to publish in Manchu. 

and to do such good as occurred to his mind in a highly executive 
manner [22nd August 1844]." 

1 Mr Lipovzoff's unfortunate name was a great stumbling-block. 
Borrow spelt it many ways, varying from Lipoffsky to Lipofsoff. It 
has been thought advisable to adopt Mr Lipovzoffs own spelling of 
his name, in order to preserve some uniformity. 



vi.] THE IDIOM OF EARL STREET 103 

Should the Russian Government refuse to permit the work 
to be proceeded with, Borrow was to occupy himself in 
assisting the Rev. Wm. Swan to transcribe and collate the 
manuscript of the Old Testament in Manchu that had 
recently come to light. At the same time, he was to seize 
every opportunity that presented itself of perfecting himself 
in Manchu. For this he was to receive a salary of two 
hundred pounds a year to cover all expenses, save those 
of the journey to and from St Petersburg, for which the 
Society was to be responsible. Borrow was advised to 
think carefully over the proposal, and, if it should prove 
attractive to him, to hold himself in readiness to start as 
soon as the General Committee should approve of the 
recommendation that was to be placed before it. In con- 
clusion, Mr Jowett proceeded to administer a gentle 
rebuke to the confident pride with which the candidate 
indited his letters. Only a quotation can show the tact 
with which the admonition was conveyed. 

" Excuse me," wrote the Literary Superintendent, " if as 
a clergyman, and your senior in years though not in talent, 
I venture, with the kindest of motives, to throw out a hint 
which may not be without its use. I am sure you will not 
be offended if I suggest that there is occasionally a tone of 
confidence in speaking of yourself, which has alarmed some 
of the excellent members of our Committee. It may have 
been this feeling, more than once displayed before, which 
prepared one or two of them to stumble at an expression 
in your letter of yesterday, in which, till pointed out, I 
confess I was not struck with anything objectionable, but 
at which, nevertheless, a humble Christian might not 
unreasonably take umbrage. It is where you speak of the 
prospect of becoming ' useful to the Deity, to man, and 
to yourself Doubtless you meant the prospect of glorifying 
God." 

Borrow had yet to learn the idiom of Earl Street, 
which he showed himself most anxious to acquire. He 
clearly recognised that the Bible Society required different 



104 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE SOCIETY [1833 

treatment from the Army Pay Office, or the Solicitor of 
the Treasury. It was accustomed to humility in those it 
employed, and a trust in a higher power, and Borrow's 
self-confident letters alarmed the members of the Com- 
mittee. How thoroughly Borrow appreciated what was 
required is shown in a letter that he wrote to his mother 
from Russia, when anticipating the return of his brother. 
" Should John return home," he warns her, " by no means let 
him go near the Bible Society, for he would not do for them." 

Borrow's reply to the Literary Superintendent's kindly 
worded admonition was entirely satisfactory and " in har- 
mony with the rule laid down by Christ himself." It was 
something of a triumph, too, for Mr Jowett to rebuke a 
man of such sensitiveness as Borrow, without goading 
him to an impatient retort. 

The meeting of the General Committee that was to 
decide upon Borrow's future was held on 22nd July, and 
on the following day Mr Jowett informed him that the 
recommendation of the Sub-Committee had been adopted 
and confirmed, at the same time requesting him to be at 
Earl Street on the morning of Friday, 26th July, that he 
might set out for St Petersburg the following Tuesday. 
On 25th July Borrow took the night coach to London. 
On the 29th he appeared before the Editorial Sub-Com- 
mittee and heard read the resolution of his appointment, 
and drafts of letters recommending him to the Rev. Wm. 
Swan and Dr I. J. Schmidt, a correspondent of the Society's 
in St Petersburg and a member of the Russian Board of 
Censors. Finally, there was impressed upon him "the 
necessity of confining himself closely to the one object of 
his mission, carefully abstaining from mingling himself 
with political or ecclesiastical affairs during his residence 
in Russia. Mr Borrow assured them of his full deter- 
mination religiously to comply with this admonition, and 
to use every prudent method for enlarging his acquaint- 
ance with the Manchu language." 1 

1 Minutes of the Editorial Sub-Committee, 29th July 1833. 



vi.] A BURST OF LAUGHTER 105 

The salary was to date from the day he embarked, and 
on account of expenses to St Petersburg he drew the 
sum of £37. The actual amount he expended was 
£27, 7s. 6d., according to the account he submitted, which 
was dated 2nd October 1834. It is to be feared that 
Borrow was not very punctual in rendering his accounts, 
as Mr Brandram wrote to him (18th October 1837):— "I 
know you are no accountant, but do not forget that there 
are some who are. My memory was jogged upon this 
subject the other day, and I was expected to say to you 
that a letter of figures would be acceptable." 

It is not unnatural that those who remembered Borrow 
as one of William Taylor's "harum-scarum " young men, 
who at one time intended to "abuse religion and get 
prosecuted," should find in his appointment as an agent of 
the British and Foreign Bible Society a subject for derisive 
mirth. Harriet Martineau's voice was heard well above 
the rest. "When this polyglott gentleman appeared 
before the public as a devout agent of the Bible Society 
in foreign parts," she wrote, "there was one burst of 
laughter from all who remembered the old Norwich days." 1 
Like hundreds of other men, Borrow had, in youth, been 
led to somewhat hasty and ill-considered conclusions ; 
but this in itself does not seem to be sufficiently strong 
reason why he should not change his views. Many 
young men pass through an aggressively irreligious 
phase without suffering much harm. Harriet Martineau 
was rather too precipitate in assuming that what a man 
believes, or disbelieves, at twenty, he holds to at thirty ; 
such a view negatives the reformer. Perhaps the chief 
cause of the change in Borrow's views was that he had 
touched the depths of failure. Here was an opening that 
promised much. He was a diplomatist when it suited his 
purpose, and if the old poison were not quite gone out of 
his system, he would hide his wounds, or allow the secre- 
taries to bandage them with mild reproof. 

1 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography. 



106 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE SOCIETY [1833 

Very different from the attitude of Harriet Martineau 
was that of John Venning, an English merchant resident at 
Norwich and recently returned from St Petersburg, where 
his charity and probity had placed him in high favour with 
the Emperor and the Goverment officials. Mr Venning gave 
Borrow letters of introduction to a number of influential 
personages at St Petersburg, including Prince Alexander 
Galitzin and Baron Schilling de Canstadt. Dr Bowring 
obtained a letter from Lord Palmerston to someone whose 
name is not known. There were letters of introduction 
from other hands, so that when he was ready to sail 
Borrow found himself " loaded with letters of recommenda- 
tion to some of the first people in Russia. Mr Venning's 
packet has arrived with letters to several of the Princes, so 
that I shall be protected if I am seized as a spy ; for the 
Emperor is particularly cautious as to the foreigners whom 
he admits. It costs £2, 7s. 6d. merely for permission to go 
to Russia, which alone is enough to deter most people." 1 

Before leaving England, Borrow paid into his mother's 
account at her bank the sum of seventeen pounds, an 
amount that she had advanced to him either during his 
unproductive years, or on account of his expenses in connec- 
tion with the expedition to St Petersburg. 

1 Letter to his mother, 30th July 1833. 



CHAPTER VII 

AUGUST 1833 — JANUARY 1 834 

/~\N I9th/3ist July 1833 Borrow set out on a journey that 
^^ was to some extent to realise his ambitions. He was 
to be trusted and encouraged and, what was most important 
of all, praised for what he accomplished ; for Borrow's was 
a nature that responded best to the praise and entire 
confidence of those for whom he worked. 

Travelling second class for reasons of economy, he 
landed at Hamburg at seven in the morning of the fourth 
day, after having experienced " a disagreeable passage of 
three days, in which I suffered much from sea-sickness." 1 
Exhausted by these days of suffering and want of sleep, 
the heat of the sun brought on " a transient fit of delirium," 2 
in other words, an attack of the " Horrors." Two fellow- 
passengers (Jews), with whom he had become acquainted, 
conveyed him to a comfortable hotel, where he was 
visited by a physician, who administered forty drops 
of laudanum, caused his head to be swathed in wet towels, 
ordered him to bed, and charged a fee of seven shillings. 
The result was that by the evening he had quite 
recovered. 

One of Borrow's first duties was to write a lengthy 
letter to Mr Jowett, telling him of his movements, 
describing the city, the service at a church he attended, 
the lax morality of the Hamburgers in permitting rope- 

1 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 4th August 1833. 

2 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 4th August 1833. 

1U7 



108 THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION [1833 

dancers in the park, and the opening of dancing-saloons, 
" most infamous places," on the Lord's day. " England, 
with all her faults," he proceeds, " has still some regard 
to decency, and will not tolerate such a shameless display 
of vice on so sacred a season, when a decent cheerfulness 
is the freest form in which the mind or countenance 
ought to invest themselves." In conclusion, he announced 
his intention of leaving for Liibeck on the sixth, 1 and he 
would be on the Baltic two days later en route for St 
Petersburg. " My next letter, provided it pleases the 
Almighty to vouchsafe me a happy arrival, will be from 
the Russian capital." By " a fervent request that you 
will not forget me in your prayers," he demonstrated 
that Mr Jowett's hint had not been forgotten. 

The distance between Hamburg and Liibeck is only 
about thirty miles, yet it occupied Borrow thirteen hours, 
so abominable was the road, which " was paved at inter- 
vals with huge masses of unhewn rock, and over this 
pavement the carriage was very prudently driven at 
a snail's pace ; for, had anything approaching speed been 
attempted, the entire demolition of the wheels in a few 
minutes must have been the necessary result. No sooner 
had we quitted this terrible pavement than we sank to 
our axle-trees in sand, mud, and water ; for, to render the 
journey perfectly delectable, the rain fell in torrents and 
ceaselessly. 2 The state of the road Borrow attributed to 
the ill-nature of the King of Denmark, for immediately 
on leaving his dominions it improved into an excellent 
carriageway. 

On 28th July / 9th August Borrow took steamer from 
Travemiinde, and three days later landed at St Petersburg. 
His first duty was to call upon Mr Swan, whom he found 

1 Borrow is always puzzling when concerned with dates. He 
writes to his mother telling her that he left on the 7th, and later 
gives the date, in a letter to Mr Jowett, as 24th July, o.S. (5th August). 
The 7th seems to be the correct date. 

2 Letter to his mother. 



vii] THE MEETING OF EAST AND WEST 109 

" one of the most amiable and interesting characters " he 
had ever met. The arrival of a coadjutor caused Mr 
Swan considerable relief, as he had suffered in health in 
consequence of his uninterrupted labours in transcribing 
the Manchu manuscript. 

Borrow v/as enthusiastic in his admiration of the capital 
of " our dear and glorious Russia." St Petersburg he 
considered " the finest city in the world " ; * other 
European capitals were unworthy of comparison. The 
enormous palaces, the long, straight streets, the grandeur 
of the public buildings, the noble Neva that flows 
majestically through " this Queen of the cities," the three 
miles long Nevsky Prospect, paved with wood ; all 
aroused in him enthusiasm and admiration. " In a word," 
he wrote to his mother, " I can do little else but look and 
wonder." All that he had read and heard of the capital 
of All the Russias had failed to prepare him for this scene 
of splendour. The meeting and harmonious mixing of 
East and West early attracted his attention. The 
Oriental cultivation of a twelve-inch beard among the 
middle and lower classes, placed them in marked contrast 
with the moustached or clean-shaven patricians and 
foreigners. In short, Russia gripped hold of and warmed 
Borrow's imagination. Here were new types, curious blend- 
ings of nationalities unthought of and strange to him, a mine 
of wealth to a man whose studies were never books, except 
when they helped him the better to understand men. 

Another thing that attracted him to Russia was the 
great kindness with which he was received, both by the 
English Colony and the natives : to the one he appealed 
by virtue of a common ancestry ; to the other, on account 
of his knowledge of the Russian tongue, not to speak of 
his mission, which acted as a strong recommendation to 
their favour. On his part Borrow reciprocated the esteem. 
If he were an implacable enemy, he was also a good 

1 " If I had my choice of all the cities of the world to live in, I 
would choose Saint Petersburg." — Wild Wales, page 665. 



110 THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION [1833 

friend, and he thoroughly appreciated the manner in 
which he was welcomed by his countrymen, especially the 
invitation he received from one of them to make his house 
his home until he found a suitable dwelling. To his 
mother he wrote : 

" The Russians are the best-natured, kindest people in 
the world, and though they do not know as much as the 
English [he was not referring to the Colony], they have 
not their fiendish, spiteful dispositions, and if you go 
amongst them and speak their language, however badly, 
they would go through fire and water to do you a kind- 
ness." Later, when in Portugal, he heartily wished him- 
self " back in Russia . . . where I had left cherished 
friends and warm affections." 

High as was his opinion of the Russians, he was at a loss 
to understand how they had earned their reputation as " the 
best general linguists in the world." He found Russian 
absolutely necessary to anyone who wished to make 
himself understood. French and German as equivalents 
were of less value in St Petersburg than in England. 

At first Borrow took up his residence " for nearly a 
fortnight in a hotel, as the difficulty of procuring lodgings 
in this place is very great, and when you have procured 
them you have to furnish them yourself at a considerable 
expense . . . eventually I took up my abode with Mr 
Egerton Hubbard, a friend of Mr Venning's [at 221 
Galernoy Ulitza], where I am for the present very 
comfortably situated." * He stayed with Mr Hubbard for 
three months ; but was eventually forced to leave on 
account of constant interruptions, probably by his fellow- 
boarders, in consequence of which he could neither perform 
his task of transcription nor devote himself to study. He 
therefore took a small lodging at a cost of nine shillings a 
week, including fires, where he could enjoy quiet and 
solitude. His meals he got at a Russian eating-house, 

1 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, undated: received 26th September 
1833- 



vii] MAKING FRIENDS 111 

dinner costing fivepence, " consequently," he writes to his 
mother, " I am not at much expense, being able to live for 
about sixty pounds a year and pay a Russian teacher, who 
has five shillings for one lesson a week." 

One of Borrow's earliest thoughts on arriving at St 
Petersburg had been to present his letters of introduction. 
Within two days of landing he called upon Prince 
Alexander Galitzin, 1 accompanied by his fellow-lodger, 
young Venning. One of the most important, and at the 
same time useful, friendships that he made was with Baron 
Schilling de Canstadt, the philologist and savant, who, 
later, with his accustomed generosity, was to place his 
unique library at Borrow's disposition. The Baron was 
one of the greatest bibliophiles of his age, and possessed 
a collection of Eastern manuscripts and other priceless 
treasures that was world-famous. He spared neither 
expense nor trouble in procuring additions to his 
collection, which after his death was acquired by the 
Imperial Academy of Science at St Petersburg. In this 
literary treasure-house Borrow found facilities for study 
such as he nowhere else could hope to obtain. 

Another friendship that Borrow made was with John 
P. Hasfeldt, a man of about his own age attached to 
the Danish Legation, who also gave lessons in languages. 
Borrow seems to have been greatly attracted to Hasfeldt, 
who wrote to him with such cordiality. It was Hasfeldt 
who gave to Borrow as a parting gift the silver shekel 
that he invariably carried about with him, and which 
caused him to be hailed as blessed by the Gibraltar Jews. 

In his letter Hasfeldt shows himself a delightful 
correspondent. His generous camaraderie seemed to 
warm Borrow to response, as indeed well it might. Who 

1 In a letter dated 3rd/ 15th August, the Prince wrote to Mr Venning 
at Norwich, " On returning thence, your son came to introduce to me 
the Englishman who has come over here about the translation of the 
Manchu Bible, and who brought with him your letter." — Memorials of 
John Venning, 1862. 



112 THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION [1833 

could resist the breezy good humour of the following 
from a letter addressed to Borrow by Hasfeldt years 
later ? — 

" Do you still eat Pike soup ? Do you remember the 
time when you lived on that dish for more than six 
weeks, and came near exterminating the whole breed ? 
And the pudding that accompanied it, that always lay 
as hard as a stone on the stomach ? This you surely 
have not forgotten. Yes, your kitchen was delicately 
manipulated by Machmoud, your Tartar servant, who 
only needed to give you horse-meat to have merited a 
diploma. Do you still sing when you are in a good 
humour ? Doubtless you are not troubled with many 
friends to visit you, for you are not of the sort who are 
easily understood, nor do you care to have everyone 
understand you ; you prefer to have people call you grey 
and let you gae." 

Other friends Borrow made, including Nikolai 
Ivanovitch Gretch, 1 the grammarian, and Friedrich von 
Adelung, 2 who assisted him with the loan of books and 
MSS. in Oriental tongues. 

The story of Borrow's labours in connection with the 
printing of the Manchu version of the New Testament, 
forms a remarkable study of unswerving courage and 
will-power triumphing over apparently insurmountable 
obstacles. The mere presence of difficulties seemed to 
increase his eagerness and determination to overcome 
them. Disappointments he had in plenty ; but his in- 
domitable courage and untiring energy, backed up by 
the earnest support he received from Earl Street, enabled 
him to emerge from his first serious undertaking with the 
knowledge that he had succeeded where failure would 
not have been discreditable. 

He threw himself into his work with characteristic 
eagerness. At the end of the first two months he had 
transcribed the Second Book of Chronicles and the Gospel 

1 Best known for his Grammar, written in German. 

2 Nephew of J. C. Adelung, the philologist. 



Vii.] " A SINGULAR MAN " 113 

of St Matthew. He formed a very high opinion of the 
work of the translator, and took the opportunity of paying 
a tribute to the followers of Ignatius Loyola (Father 
Puerot was a Jesuit). " When," he writes, " did a Jesuit 
any thing which he undertook, whether laudable or the 
reverse, not far better than any other person ? " yet they 
laboured in vain, for "they thought not of His glory, 
but of the glory of their order." 1 

Borrow discovered that Mr Lipovzoff knew nothing 
of the Bible Society's scheme for printing the New 
Testament in Manchu ; but he found, what was of even 
greater importance to him, that the old man knew no 
European language but Russian. Thus the frequent 
conversations and explanations all tended to improve 
Borrow's knowledge of the language of the people among 
whom he was living. 

Mr Lipovzoff struck Borrow as being " rather a singular 
man," as he took occasion to inform Mr Jowett, apparently 
utterly indifferent as to the fate of his translation, excel- 
lent though it was. As a matter of fact, Mr Lipovzoff was 
occupied with his own concerns, and, as an official in the 
Russian Foreign Office, most likely saw the inexpediency 
of a too eager enthusiasm for the Bible Society's Manchu- 
Tartar programme. He was probably bewildered by the 
fierce energy of its honest and compelling agent, who 
had descended upon St Petersburg to do the Society's 
bidding with an impetuosity and determination foreign 
to Russian official life. Borrow was on fire with zeal and 
impatient of the apathy of those around him. 

He soon began to show signs of that singleness of 
purpose and resourcefulness that, later, was to arouse so 
much enthusiasm among the members of the Bible Society 
at home. The transcribing and collating Puerot's version 
of the Scriptures occupied the remainder of the year. On 
the completion of this work, it had been arranged that Mr 

1 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, undated, but received 26th September 

1833- 

H 



114 THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION [1834 

Swan should return to his mission-station in Siberia. The 
next step was to obtain official sanction to print the 
LipovzofT version of the New Testament. Dr Schmidt, to 
whom Borrow turned for advice and information, was 
apparently very busily occupied with his own affairs, which 
included the compilation of a Mongolian Grammar and 
Dictionary. The Doctor was optimistic, and promised to 
make enquiries about the steps to be taken to obtain the 
necessary permission to print ; but Borrow heard nothing 
further from him. 

" Thus circumstanced, and being very uneasy in my 
mind," he writes, " I determined to take a bold step, and 
directly and without further feeling my way, to petition the 
Government in my own name for permission to print the 
Manchu Scriptures. Having communicated this deter- 
mination to our beloved, sincere, and most truly Christian 
friend Mr Swan (who has lately departed to his station in 
Siberia, shielded I trust by the arm of his Master), it met 
with his perfect approbation and cordial encouragement. 
I therefore drew up a petition, and presented it with my 
own hand to His Excellence Mr Bludoff, Minister of the 
Interior." 1 

The minister made reply that he doubted his juris- 
diction in the matter ; but that he would consider. Fear- 
ful lest the matter should miscarry or be shelved, Borrow 
called on the evening of the same day upon the British 
Minister, the Hon. J. D. Bligh, " a person of superb talents, 
kind disposition, and of much piety," 2 whose friendship 
Borrow had " assiduously cultivated," and who had shown 
him "many condescending marks of kindness." 3 But Mr 
Bligh was out. Nothing daunted, Borrow wrote a note 
entreating his interest with the Russian officials. On 
calling for an answer in the morning, he was received by 
Mr Bligh, when " he was kind enough to say that if I 
desired it he would apply officially to the Minister, and 

1 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/ 1st February 1834. 

2 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/ist February 1834. 

3 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/ist February 1834. 



viT.] A NEW VIEW OF CENSORSHIP 115 

exert all his influence in his official character in order to 
obtain the accomplishment of my views, but at the same 
time suggested that it would, perhaps, be as well at a 
private interview to beg it as a personal favour." l 

There was hesitation, perhaps suspicion, in official 
quarters. It is easy to realise that the Government was 
not eager to assist the agent of an institution closely 
allied to the Russian Bible Society, which it had recently 
been successful in suppressing. It might with impunity 
suppress a Society ; but in George Borrow it soon 
became evident that the officials had to deal with a 
man of purpose and determination who used a British 
Minister as a two-edged sword. Borrow was invited to 
call at the Asiatic Department : he did so, and learned 
that if permission were granted, Mr Lipovzoff (who was 
a clerk in the Department) was to be censor (over his 
own translation ! ) and Borrow editor. There was still 
the " If." Borrow waited a fortnight, then called on Mr 
Bligh. By great good chance Mr Bludoff was dining 
that evening with the British Minister. The same night 
Borrow received a message requesting him to call on 
Mr Bludoff the next day. On presenting himself he was 
given a letter to the Director of Worship, which he 
delivered without delay, and was told to call again on the 
first day of the following week. 

" On calling there / fonyid that permission had been 
granted to print the Manchu Scripture." 2 Baron Schilling 
had rendered some assistance in getting the permission, 
and Borrow was requested to inform him of "the deep 
sense of obligation" of the Bible Society, to which was 
added a present of some books. 

Borrow clearly viewed this as only a preliminary 
success ; he had in mind the eventual printing of the 

1 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/ist February 1834. 

2 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/ 1st February 1834. Prob- 
ably this means the New Testament only, as there was no intention 
of printing the Old Testament at that date. 



116 THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION [1834 

whole Bible. He was beginning to feel conscious of his 
own powers. Mr Swan had gone, and upon Borrow's 
shoulders rested the whole enterprise. A mild wave of 
enthusiasm passed over the Head Office at Earl Street on 
receipt of the news that permission to print had been 
obtained. 

" You cannot conceive," Borrow wrote to Mr Jowett, 
" the cold, heartless apathy in respect to the affair, on 
which I have been despatched hither as an assistant, which 
I have found in people to whom I looked not unreason- 
ably for encouragement and advice." 1 Well might he 
underline the word " assistant." In this same letter, with 
a spasmodic flicker of the old self-confidence, he adds, " In 
regard to what we have yet to do, let it be borne in mind, 
that we are by no means dependent upon Mr Lipovzoff, 
though certainly to secure the services, which he is capable 
of performing, would be highly desirable, and though he 
cannot act outwardly in the character of Editor (he having 
been appointed censor), he may privately be of great 
utility to us." Borrow seems to have formed no very high 
opinion of Mr Lipovzoffs capacity for affairs, although he 
recognised his skill as a translator. 

At first Borrow seems to have found the severity of the 
winter very trying. " The cold when you go out into it," 
he writes to his mother (ist/ 13th Feb. 1834), "cuts your 
face like a razor, and were you not to cover it with furs the 
flesh would be bitten off. The rooms in the morning are 
heated with a stove as hot as ovens, and you would not be 
able to exist in one for a minute ; but I have become used 
to them and like them much, though at first they made me 
dreadfully sick and brought on bilious headaches." 

1 In a letter to his mother, dated ist / 13th Feb., Borrow writes : "The 
Bible Society depended upon Dr Schmidt and the Russian translator 
Lipovzoff to manage this business [the obtaining of the official 
sanction], but neither the one nor the other would give himself the 
least trouble about the matter, or give me the slightest advice how to 
proceed." 



vii] A MIND FOR DETAIL 117 

There was still at the Sarepta House, the premises of 
the Bible Society's bankers in St Petersburg, the box of 
Manchu type, which had not been examined since the 
river floods. In addition to this, the only other Manchu 
characters in St Petersburg belonged to Baron Schilling, 
who possessed a small fount of the type, which he used 
" for the convenience of printing trifles in that tongue," as 
Borrow phrased it. This was to be put at Borrow's 
disposal if necessary; but first the type at the Sarepta 
House had to be examined. Borrow's plan was, provided 
the type were not entirely ruined, to engage the services 
of a printer who was accustomed to setting Mongolian 
characters, which are very similar to those of Manchu, 
who would, he thought, be competent to undertake the 
work. He suggested following the style of the St 
Matthew's Gospel already printed, giving to each Gospel 
and the Acts a volume and printing the Epistles and the 
Apocalypse in three more, making eight volumes in all. 

These he proposed putting " in a small thin wooden 
case, covered with blue stuff, precisely after the manner of 
Chinese books, in order that they may not give offence to 
the eyes of the people for whom they are intended by a 
foreign and unusual appearance, for the mere idea that 
they are barbarian books would certainly prevent them 
being read, and probably cause their destruction if ever 
they found their way into the Chinese Empire." 1 Borrow 
left nothing to chance ; he thought out every detail with 
great care before venturing to put his plans into execution. 

Although busily occupied in an endeavour to stimulate 
Russian government officials to energy and decision, 
Borrow was not neglecting what had been so strongly 
urged upon him, the perfecting of himself in the Manchu 
dialect. In reply to an enquiry from Mr Jowett as to 
what manner of progress he was making, he wrote : — 

" For some time past I have taken lessons from a 
1 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 4th/i6th February 1834. 



118 THE RUSSIAN EXPEDITION [1834 

person who was twelve years in Pekin, and who speaks 
Manchu and Chinese with fluency. I pay him about six 
shillings English for each lesson, which I grudge not, for 
the perfect acquirement of Manchu is one of my most 
ardent wishes." 1 

This person Borrow subsequently recommended to the 
Society " to assist me in making a translation into Manchu 
of the Psalms and Isaiah," but the pundit proved "of no 
utility at all, but only the cause of error." 

Borrow was soon able to transcribe the Manchu 
characters with greater facility and speed than he could 
English. In addition to being able to translate from and 
into Manchu, he could compose hymns in the language, 
and even prepared a Manchu rendering of the second 
Homily of the Church of England, " On the Misery of 
Man." He had, however, made the discovery that Manchu 
was far less easy to him than it had at first appeared, and 
that Amyot was to some extent justified in his view of the 
difficulties it presented. " It is one of those deceitful 
tongues," he confesses in a letter to Mr Jowett, "the seem- 
ing simplicity of whose structure induces you to suppose, 
after applying to it for a month or two, that little more 
remains to be learned, but which, should you continue 
to study a year, as I have studied this, show themselves 
to you in their veritable colours, amazing you with 
their copiousness, puzzling with their idioms." 2 Its 
difficulties, however, did not discourage him ; for he had 
a great admiration for the language which " for majesty 
and grandeur of sound, and also for general copiousness 
. . . is unequalled by any existing tongue." 3 

However great his exertions or discouragements, 
Borrow never forgot his mother, to whom he was a model 
son. On ist/i3th February he sent her a draft for twenty 
pounds, being the second since his arrival six months pre- 

1 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 20th Jan./ist Feb. 1834. 

2 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 20th Jan./ist Feb. 1834. 

3 Letter to the Rev. F. Cunningham, I7th/29th Nov. 1834. 



vii.] AN ATTACK OF "THE HORRORS m 119 

viously. Thus out of his first half-year's salary of a hundred 
pounds, he sent to his mother forty pounds (in addition to 
the seventeen pounds he had paid into her account before 
sailing), and with it a promise that " next quarter I shall 
try and send you thirty," lest in the recent storms of which 
he had heard, some of her property should have suffered 
damage and be in need of repair. The larger remit- 
tance, however, he was unable to make on account of the 
illness that had necessitated the drinking of a bottle of port 
wine each day (by doctor's orders) ; but he was punctual 
in remitting the twenty pounds. The attack which required 
so drastic a remedy originated in a chill caught as the ice 
was breaking up. " I went mad," he tells his mother, " and 
when the fever subsided, I was seized with the ' Horrors,' 
which never left me day or night for a week." 1 During 
this illness everyone seems to have been extremely kind 
and attentive, the Emperor's apothecary, even, sending 
word that Borrow was to order of him anything, medical or 
otherwise, that he found himself in need of. 

1 ist/i3th May 1834. 



CHAPTER VIII 

FEBRUARY — OCTOBER 1 834 

OORROW had at last found work that was thoroughly 
-*-* congenial to him. It was not in his nature to exist 
outside his occupations, and his whole personality became 
bound up in the mission upon which he was engaged. Not 
content with preparing the way for printing the New 
Testament in Manchu, he set himself the problem of how 
it was to be distributed when printed. He foresaw serious 
obstacles to its introduction into China, on account of 
the suspicion with which was regarded any and everything 
European. With a modest disclaimer that his suggestion 
arose " from a plenitude of self-conceit and a disposition 
to offer advice upon all matters, however far they may be 
above my understanding," he proceeds to deal with the 
difficulties of distribution with great clearness. 

To send the printed books to Canton, to be distributed 
by English missionaries, he thought would be productive 
of very little good, nor would it achieve the object of the 
Society, to distribute copies at seaports along the coasts, 
because it was unlikely that there would be many Tartars 
or people there who understood Manchu. There was a 
further obstacle in the suspicion in which the Chinese held 
all things English. On the other hand, he tells Mr Jowett, 

"there is a most admirable opening for the work on the 
Russian side of the Chinese Empire. About five thousand 
miles from St Petersburg, on the frontiers of Chinese 
Tartary, and only nine hundred miles distant from 

120 



viii.] THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION 121 

Pekin, the seat of the Tartar Monarchy, stands the town 
of Kiakhta, 1 which properly belongs to Russia, but the 
inhabitants of which are a medley of Tartary, Chinese, 
and Russ {sic). As far as this town a Russian or 
foreigner is permitted to advance, but his further progress 
is forbidden, and if he make the attempt he is liable to be 
taken up as a spy or deserter, and sent back under guard. 
This town is the emporium of Chinese and Russian trade. 
Chinese caravans are continually arriving and returning, 
bringing and carrying away articles of merchandise. 
There are likewise a Chinese and a Tartar Mandarin, also 
a school where Chinese and Tartar are taught, and where 
Chinese and Tartar children along with Russian are 
educated." 2 

The advantages of such a town as a base of operations 
were obvious. Borrow was convinced that he could dis- 
pose "of any quantity of Testaments to the Chinese 
merchants who arrive thither from Pekin and other places, 
and who would be glad to purchase them on speculation." 3 

Russia and China were friendly to each other, so much 
so, that there was at Pekin a Russian mission, the only 
one of its kind. These good relations rendered Borrow 
confident that books from Russia, especially books which 
had not an outlandish appearance, would be purchased 
without scruple. " In a word, were an agent for the Bible 
Society to reside at this town [Kiakhta] for a year or 
so, it is my humble opinion, and the opinion of much 
wiser people, that if he were active, zealous and likewise 
courageous, the blessings resulting from his labours 
would be incalculable." * 

He might even make excursions into Tartary, and 
become friendly with the inhabitants, and eventually 
perhaps, " with a little management and dexterity," he 
might " penetrate even to Pekin, and return in safety, 

1 This spelling is adopted throughout for uniformity. Borrow 
writes Chiachta. 

8 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 4th / 16th February 1834. 

3 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 4th/ 16th February 1834. 

4 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 4th / 16th February 1834. 



122 DEVELOPS UNEXPECTED TALENTS, [1834 

after having examined the state of the land. I can only- 
say that if it were my fortune to have the opportunity, I 
would make the attempt, and should consider myself only 
to blame if I did not succeed." Borrow was to revert to 
this suggestion on many occasions, in fact it seems to have 
been in his mind during the whole period of his associa- 
tion with the Bible Society. 

Acting upon instructions from Earl Street, Borrow 
proceeded to find out the approximate cost of printing the 
Manchu New Testament. He early discovered that in 
Russia " the wisdom of the serpent is quite as necessary 
as the innocence of the dove," as he took occasion to 
inform Mr Jowett. The Russians rendered him estimates 
of cost as if of the opinion that " Englishmen are made of 
gold, and that it is only necessary to ask the most 
extravagant price for any article in order to obtain it." 

In St Petersburg Borrow was taken for a German, a 
nation for which he cherished a cordial dislike. This 
mistake as to nationality, however, did not hinder the 
Russian tradesmen from asking exorbitant prices for their 
services or their goods. At first Borrow " was quite 
terrified at the enormous sums which some of the printers 
. . . required for the work." At length he applied to the 
University Press, which asked 30 roubles 60 copecks (24s. 
8d.) per sheet of two pages for composition and printing. 
A young firm of German printers, Schultz & Beneze, 
was, however, willing to undertake the same work at the 
rate of 12-i- roubles (10s.) per two sheets. 

In contracting for the paper Borrow showed himself 
quite equal to the commercial finesse of the Russian. 
He scoured the neighbourhood round St Petersburg in 
a calash at a cost of about four pounds. Russian methods 
of conducting business are amazing to the English mind. 
At Peterhof, a town about twenty miles out of St 
Petersburg, he found fifty reams of a paper such as he 
required. " Concerning the price of this paper," he writes, 
" I could obtain no positive information, for the Director 



viii.] A PRINCE OF BARGAINERS 123 

and first and second clerks were invariably absent, and 
the place abandoned to ignorant understrappers (accord- 
ing to the custom of Russia). And notwithstanding 
I found out the Director in St Petersburg, he himself 
could not tell me the price." 1 

Eventually 75 roubles (£3) a ream was quoted for 
the stock, and 100 roubles (£4) a ream for any further 
quantity required. Thus the paper for a thousand copies 
would run to 40,000 roubles (^1600), or 32s. a copy. 
Borrow found that the law of commerce prevalent in 
the East was that adopted in St Petersburg. A price 
is named merely as a basis of negotiation, and the 
customer beats it down to a figure that suits him, or he goes 
elsewhere. Borrow was a master of such methods. The 
sum he eventually paid for the paper was 25 roubles 
(£1) a ream ! Of all these negotiations he kept Mr 
Jowett well informed. By June he had received from 
Earl Street the official sanction to proceed, together with 
a handsome remittance. 

For some time past Borrow had been anxious on 
account of his brother John. On 9th /21st November, he 
had written to his mother telling her to write to John 
urging him to come home at once, as he had seen in 
the Russian newspapers how the town of Guanajuato 
had been taken and sacked by the rebels, and also that 
cholera was ravaging Mexico. Later 2 he tells her of 
that nice house at Lakenham, 3 which he means to buy, 
and how John can keep a boat and amuse himself on 
the river, and adds, " I dare say I shall continue for a 
long time with the Bible Society, as they see that I am 
useful to them and can be depended upon." 

On the day following that on which Borrow wrote 
asking his mother to urge his brother to return home, 
viz., ioth/22nd November, John died. He was taken ill 

1 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 15th /23rd April 1834. 

2 In a letter dated 1st / 13th May 1834. 
8 A suburb of Norwich. 



124 DEVELOPS UNEXPECTED TALENTS [1834 

suddenly in the morning and passed away the same 
afternoon. 

In February 1832 John Borrow had, much against 
the advice of his friends, left the United Mexican Com- 
pany, which he had become associated with the previous 
year. He was of a restless disposition, never content 
with what he was doing. Thinking he could better 
himself, and having saved a few hundred dollars, he 
resigned his post. He appears soon to have discovered 
his mistake. First he indulged in an unfortunate specu- 
lation, by which he was a considerable loser, then cholera 
broke out. Without a thought of himself he turned 
nurse and doctor, witnessing terrible scenes of misery 
and death and ministering to the poor with an energy 
and humanity that earned for him the admiration 
of the whole township. Finally, finding himself in 
serious financial difficulties, he entered the service 
of the Colombian Mining Company, and was to 
be sent to Colombia " for the purpose of introducing 
the Mexican system of beneficiating there." It only 
remained for the agreement to be signed, when he was 
taken ill. 

In the letter in which she tells George of their loss, 
Mrs Borrow expresses fear that he does " not live regular. 
When you find yourself low," she continues, " take a little 
wine, but not too much at one time ; it will do you the 
more good ; I find that by myself." Her solicitude for 
George's health is easily understandable. He is now her 
" only hope," as she pathetically tells him. " Do not 
grieve, my dear George," she proceeds tenderly, " I trust 
we shall all meet in heaven. Put a crape on your hat for 
some time." 

George wrote immediately to acknowledge his mother's 
letter containing the news of John's death, which had given 
him "the severest stroke I ever experienced. It [the 
letter] quite stunned me, and since reading its contents 
I have done little else but moan and lament. . . . O that 



viii.] A SON'S SOLICITUDE 125 

our darling John had taken the advice which I gave him 
nearly three years since, to abandon that horrid country 
and return to England ! . . . Would that I had died for 
him ! for I loved him dearly, dearly." Borrow's affection 
for his bright and attractive brother is everywhere 
manifest in his writings. He never showed the least 
jealousy when his father held up his first-born as a model 
to the strange and incomprehensible younger son. His 
love for and admiration of John were genuine and deep- 
rooted. In the same letter he goes on to assure his 
mother that he was never better in his life, and that 
experience teaches him how to cure his disorders. " The 
' Horrors,' for example. Whenever they come I must 
drink strong Port wine, and then they are stopped 
instantly. But do not think that I drink habitually, for 
you ought to know that I abhor drink. The ' Horrors ' are 
brought on by weakness." 

He goes on to reassure his mother as to the care he 
takes of himself, telling her that he has three meals a 
day, although, as a rule, dinner is a poor one, " for the 
Russians, in the first place, are very indifferent cooks, 
and the meat is very bad, as in fact are almost all the 
provisions." The fish is without taste, Russian salmon 
having less savour than English skate ; the fowls are 
dry because no endeavour is made to fatten them, and 
the "mutton stinks worst than carrion, for they never cut 
the wool." 

With great thought and tenderness he tells her that 
he wishes her " to keep a maid, for I do not like that you 
should live alone. Do not take one of the wretched girls 
of Norwich," he advises her, but rather the daughter of 
one of her tenants. " What am I working for here and 
saving money, unless it is for your comfort ? for I assure 
you that to make you comfortable is my greatest happiness, 
almost my only one." Urging her to keep up her spirits 
and read much of the things that interest her, he concludes 
with a warning to her not to pay any debts contracted by 



12G DEVELOPS UNEXPECTED TALENTS [1834 

John. 1 The letter concludes with the postscript : " I have 
got the crape." 

In July 1834 Borrow again changed his quarters, taking 
an unfurnished floor, 2 at the same time hiring a Tartar 
servant named Mahmoud, 3 "the best servant I ever had." 3 
The wages he paid this prince of body-servants was thirty 
shillings a month, out of which Mahmoud supplied himself 
" with food and everything." Borrow's reason for making 
this change in his lodgings was that he wanted more room 
than he had, and furnished apartments were very expensive. 
The actual furnishing was not a very costly matter to a 
man of Borrow's simple wants ; for the expenditure of 
seven pounds he provided himself with all he required. 

After the letter of 27th June /9th July the Bible 
Society received no further news of what was taking 
place in St Petersburg. Week after week passed without 
anything being heard of its Russian agent's move- 
ments or activities. On 25th September/ 7th October 
Mr Jowett wrote an extremely moderate letter beseech- 
ing Borrow to remember " the very lively interest " 
taken by the General Committee in the printing of the 
Manchu version of the New Testament ; that people were 
asking, " What is Mr Borrow doing?" that the Committee 
stands between its agents and an eager public, desirous of 
knowing the trials and tribulations, the hopes and fears 
of those actively engaged in printing or disseminating the 
Scriptures. " You can have no difficulty," he continues, 
" in furnishing me with such monthly information as may 
satisfy the Committee that they are not expending a large 

1 Mrs Borrow eventually received from Allday Kerrison £$0, 
us. id., the amount realised from the sale of John's effects. 

2 This was partly on account of the Bible Society for storage 
purposes. In the minutes of the Sub-Committee, 18th August 1834, 
there is a record of an advice having been received from Borrow 
that he had drawn " for 400 Roubles for one year's rent in advance 
for a suitable place of deposit for the Society's paper, etc., part of 
which had been received." 

3 Letter to John P. Hasfeldt from Madrid, 29th April 1837. 



Vin.] "WHAT IS MR BORROW DOING?" 127 

sum of money in vain." There was also a request for 
information as to how "some critical difficulty has been 
surmounted by the translator, or editor, or both united, not 
to mention the advance already made in actual printing." 
On ist/ 13th Oct. Borrow had written a brief letter giving 
an account of his disbursements during the journey to St 
Petersburg fifteen months previously; but he made no 
mention of what was taking place with regard to the 
printing. 

The letter in which Borrow replied to Mr Jowett is 
probably the most remarkable he ever wrote. It presents 
him in a light that must have astonished those who had 
been so eager to ridicule his appointment as an agent of 
the Bible Society. The letter runs : — 

St Petersburg, 
8//z [20///] October 1834. 

I have just received your most kind epistle, the 
perusal of which has given me both pain and pleasure — 
pain that from unavoidable circumstances I have been 
unable to gratify eager expectation, and pleasure that any 
individual should have been considerate enough to foresee 
my situation and to make allowance for it. The nature of 
my occupations during the last two months and a half has 
been such as would have entirely unfitted me for corre- 
spondence, had I been aware that it was necessary, which, 
on my sacred word, I was not. Now, and only now, when 
by the blessing of God I have surmounted all my troubles 
and difficulties, I will tell, and were I not a Christian I 
should be proud to tell, what I have been engaged upon 
and accomplished during the last ten weeks. I have been 
working in the printing-office, as a common compositor, 
between ten and thirteen hours every day during that 
period ; the result of this is that St Matthew's Gospel, 
printed from such a copy as I believe nothing was ever 
printed from before, has been brought out in the Manchu 
language ; two rude Esthonian peasants, who previously 
could barely compose with decency in a plain language 
which they spoke and were accustomed to, have received 
such instruction that with ease they can each compose at 
the rate of a sheet a day in the Manchu, perhaps the most 



128 DEVELOPS UNEXPECTED TALENTS [1834 

difficult language for composition in the whole world. 
Considerable progress has also been made in St Mark's 
Gospel, and I will venture to promise, provided always 
the Almighty smiles upon the undertaking, that the entire 
work of which I have the superintendence will be published 
within eight months from the present time. Now, there- 
fore, with the premise that I most unwillingly speak of 
myself and what I have done and suffered for some time 
past, all of which I wished to keep locked up in my own 
breast, I will give a regular and circumstantial account of 
my proceedings from the day when I received your letter, 
by which I was authorised by the Committee to bespeak 
paper, engage with a printer, and cause our type to be set 
in order. 

My first care was to endeavour to make suitable 
arrangements for the obtaining of Chinese paper. Now 
those who reside in England, the most civilised and blessed 
of countries, where everything is to be obtained at a fair 
price, have not the slightest idea of the anxiety and 
difficulty which, in a country like this, harass the foreigner 
who has to disburse money not his own, if he wish that 
his employers be not shamefully and outrageously imposed 
upon. In my last epistle to you I stated that I had been 
asked ioo roubles per ream for such paper as we wanted. 
I likewise informed you that I believed that it was possible 
to procure it for 35 roubles, notwithstanding our Society 
had formerly paid 40 roubles for worse paper than the 
samples I was in possession of. Now I have always been 
of opinion that in the expending of money collected for 
sacred purposes, it behoves the agent to be extraordinarily 
circumspect and sparing. I therefore was determined, 
whatever trouble it might cost me, to procure for the 
Society unexceptionable paper at a yet more reasonable 
rate than 35 roubles. I was aware that an acquaintance 
of mine, a young Dane, was particularly intimate with 
one of the first printers of this city, who is accustomed 
to purchase vast quantities of paper every month for his 
various publications. I gave this young gentleman a 
specimen of the paper I required, and desired him (he 
was under obligations to me) to inquire of his friend, 
as if from curiosity, the least possible sum per ream at 
which the printer himself (who from his immense demand for 
paper should necessarily obtain it cheaper than any one 
else) could expect to purchase the article in question. 



Viii.] BORROW EXPLAINS 129 

The answer I received within a day or two was 25 roubles. 
Upon hearing this I prevailed upon my acquaintance 
to endeavour to persuade his friend to bespeak the paper 
at 25 roubles, and to allow me, notwithstanding I was 
a perfect stranger, to have it at that price. All this was 
brought about. I was introduced to the printer, Mr 
Pluchard, by the Dane, Mr Hasfeldt, and between the former 
gentleman and myself a contract was made to the effect 
that by the end of October he should supply me with 450 
reams of Chinese paper at 25 roubles per ream, the first 
delivery to be made on the 1st of August ; for as my order 
was given at an advanced period of the year, when all the 
paper manufactories were at full work towards the executing 
of orders already received, it was but natural that I should 
verify the old apophthegm, ' Last come, last served.' As no 
orders are attended to in Russia unless money be advanced 
upon them, I deposited in the hands of Mr Pluchard the 
sum of 2000 roubles, receiving his receipt for that amount. 

Having arranged this most important matter to 
my satisfaction, I turned my attention to the printing 
process. I accepted the offer of Messrs Schultz & 
Beneze to compose and print the Manchu Testament 
at the rate of 25 roubles per sheet [of four pages], and 
caused our fount of type to be conveyed to their office. 
I wish to say here a few words respecting the state 
in which these types came into my possession. I found 
them in a kind of warehouse, or rather cellar. They had 
been originally confined in two cases ; but these having 
burst, the type lay on the floor trampled amidst mud 
and filth. They were, moreover, not improved by having 
been immersed within the waters of the inundation of 
'27 [1824]. I caused them all to be collected and sent 
to their destination, where they were purified and 
arranged — a work of no small time and difficulty, at 
which I was obliged to assist. Not finding with the 
type what is called ' Durchschuss ' by the printers here, 
consisting of leaden wedges of about six ounces weight 
each, which form the spaces between the lines, I ordered 
120 pounds weight of those at a rouble a pound, being 
barely enough for three sheets. 1 I had now to teach 

1 In the minutes of the Sub-Committee, 18th August (N.S.) 1834, 
there is a note of Borrow having drawn 210 roubles "to pay for cer- 
tain articles required to complete the Society's fount of Manchu type." 

I 



130 DEVELOPS UNEXPECTED TALENTS [1834 

the compositors the Manchu alphabet, and to distinguish 
one character from another. This occupied a few days, 
at the end of which I gave them the commencement of 
St Matthew's Gospel to copy. They no sooner saw the 
work they were called upon to perform than there were 
loud murmurs of dissatisfaction, and . . . ' It is quite im- 
possible to do the like,' was the cry — and no wonder. 
The original printed Gospel had been so interlined and 
scribbled upon by the author, in a hand so obscure and 
irregular, that, accustomed as I was to the perusal of the 
written Manchu, it was not without the greatest difficulty 
that I could decipher the new matter myself. Moreover, 
the corrections had been so carelessly made that they 
themselves required far more correction than the original 
matter. I was therefore obliged to be continually in the 
printing-office, and to do three parts of the work myself. 
For some time I found it necessary to select every 
character with my own fingers, and to deliver it to the 
compositor, and by so doing I learnt myself to compose. 
We continued in this way till all our characters were 
exhausted, for no paper had arrived. For two weeks and 
more we were obliged to pause, the want of paper being 
insurmountable. At the end of this period came six 
reams ; but partly from the manufacturers not being 
accustomed to make this species of paper, and partly from 
the excessive heat of the weather, which caused it to dry 
too fast, only one ream and a half could be used, and 
this was not enough for one sheet ; the rest I refused 
to take, and sent back. The next week came fifteen 
reams. This paper, from the same causes, was as bad 
as the last. I selected four reams, and sent the rest 
back. But this paper enabled us to make a beginning, 
which we did not fail to do, though we received no more 
for upwards of a fortnight, which caused another pause. 
At the end of that time, owing to my pressing remon- 
strances and entreaties, a regular supply of about twelve 
reams per week of most excellent paper commenced. 
This continued until we had composed the last five 
sheets of St Matthew, when some paper arrived, which 
in my absence was received by Mr Beneze, who, without 
examining it, as was his duty, delivered it to the printers 
to use in the printing of the said sheets, who accordingly 
printed upon part of it. But the next day, when my 
occupation permitted me to see what they were about, 



viii] "ALMOST REDUCED TO A SKELETON" 131 

I observed that the last paper was of a quality very 
different from that which had been previously sent. I 
accordingly instantly stopped the press, and, notwithstand- 
ing eight reams had been printed upon, I sent all the 
strange paper back, and caused Mr Beneze to recompose 
three sheets, which had been broken up, at his own expense. 
But this caused the delay of another week. 

This last circumstance made me determine not to 
depend in future for paper on one manufactory alone. I 
therefore stated to Mr P[luchard] that, as his people were 
unable to furnish me with the article fast enough, I should 
apply to others for 250 reams, and begged him to supply 
me with the rest as fast as possible. He made no objec- 
tion. Thereupon I prevailed upon my most excellent 
friend, Baron Schilling, to speak to his acquaintance, 
State-Councillor Alquin, who is possessed of a paper- 
manufactory, on the subject. M. Alquin, as a personal 
favour to Baron Schilling (whom, I confess, I was ashamed 
to trouble upon such an affair, and should never have 
done so had not zeal for the cause induced me), consented 
to furnish me with the required paper on the same terms 
as Mr P. At present there is not the slightest risk of the 
progress of our work being retarded — at present, indeed, 
the path is quite easy ; but the trouble, anxiety, and misery 
which have till lately harassed me, alone in a situation of 
great responsibility, have almost reduced me to a skeleton. 

My dearest Sir, do me the favour to ask our excellent 
Committee, Would it have answered any useful purpose if, 
instead of continuing to struggle with difficulties and 
using my utmost to overcome them, I had written in the 
following strain — and what else could I have written if I 
had written at all ? — ' I was sent out to St Petersburg 
to assist Mr Lipovzoff in the editing of the Manchu 
Testament. That gentleman, who holds three important 
situations under the Russian Government, and who is far 
advanced in years, has neither time, inclination, nor 
eyesight for the task, and I am apprehensive that my 
strength and powers unassisted are incompetent to it' 
(praised be the Lord, they were not !), ' therefore I should 
be glad to return home. Moreover, the compositors say 
they are unaccustomed to compose in an unknown tongue 
from such scribbled and illegible copy, and they will 
scarcely assist me to compose. Moreover, the working 
printers say (several went away in disgust) that the paper 



132 DEVELOPS UNEXPECTED TALENTS [1834 

on which they have to print is too thin to be wetted, and 
that to print on dry requires a twofold exertion of strength, 
and that they will not do such work for double wages, for 
it ruptures them.' Would that have been a welcome 
communication to the Committee? Would that have 
been a communication suited to the public ? I was 
resolved ' to do or die,' and, instead of distressing and 
perplexing the Committee with complaints, to write 
nothing until I could write something perfectly satisfactory, 
as I now can ; 1 and to bring about that result I have 
spared neither myself nor my own money. I have toiled 
in a close printing-office the whole day, during ninety 
degrees of heat, for the purpose of setting an example, and 
have bribed people to work when nothing but bribes would 
induce them so to do. 

I am obliged to say all this in self-justification. No 
member of the Bible Society would ever have heard a 
syllable respecting what I have undergone but for the 
question, ' What has Mr Borrow been about ? ' I hope 
and trust that question is now answered to the satisfaction 
of those who do Mr Borrow the honour to employ him. 
In respect to the expense attending the editing of such a 
work as the New Testament in Manchu, I beg leave to 
observe that I have obtained the paper, the principal source 
of expense, at fifteen roubles per ream less than the 
Society formerly paid for it — that is to say, at nearly half 
the price. 

As St Matthew's Gospel has been ready for some 
weeks, it is high time that it should be bound ; for if that 
process be delayed, the paper will be dirtied and the work 
injured. I am sorry to inform you that book-binding in 
Russia is incredibly dear, 2 and that the expenses attending 
the binding of the Testament would amount, were the 
usual course pursued, to two-thirds of the entire expenses 
of the work. Various book-binders to whom I have applied 
have demanded one rouble and a half for the binding of 
every section of the work, so that the sum required for 

1 " My letters to my private friends have always been written during 
gleams of sunshine, and traced in the characters of hope.'' 

' 2 "You may easily judge of the state of book-binding here by the 
fact that for every volume, great or small, printed in Russia, there is a 
duty of 30 copecks, or threepence, to be paid to the Russian Govern- 
ment, if the said volume be exported unbound." 



viii.] "IF I HAVE ERRED, I ASK PARDON" 133 

the binding of one Testament alone would be twelve 
roubles. Doctor Schmidt assured me that one rouble and 
forty copecks, or, according to the English currency, 
fourteenpence halfpenny, were formerly paid for the 
binding of every individual copy of St Matthew's Gospel. 
I pray you, my dear Sir, to cause the books to be referred 
to, for I wish to know if that statement be correct. In the 
meantime arrangements have to be made, and the Society 
will have to pay for each volume of the Testament the 
comparatively small sum of forty-five copecks, or fourpence 
halfpenny, whereas the usual price here for the most paltry 
covering of the most paltry pamphlet is fivepence. Should 
it be demanded how I have been able to effect this, my 
reply is that I have had little hand in the matter. A 
nobleman who honours me with particular friendship, and 
who is one of the most illustrious ornaments of Russia and 
of Europe, has, at my request, prevailed on his own book- 
binder, over whom he has much influence, to do the work 
on these terms. That nobleman is Baron Schilling. 

Commend me to our most respected Committee. 
Assure them that in whatever I have done or left undone, 
I have been influenced by a desire to promote the glory 
of the Trinity and to give my employers ultimate and 
permanent satisfaction. If I have erred, it has been from 
a defect of judgment, and I ask pardon of God and them. 

In the course of a week I shall write again, and give 
a further account of my proceedings, for I have not 
communicated one-tenth of what I have to impart ; but I 
can write no more now. It is two hours past midnight ; 
the post goes away to-morrow, and against that morrow I 
have to examine and correct three sheets of St Mark's 
Gospel, which lie beneath the paper on which I am writing. 
With my best regards to Mr Brandram, 
I remain, dear Sir, 

Most truly yours, 

G. Borrow. 

Rev. Joseph Jowett. 

Closely following upon this letter, and without waiting 
for a reply, Borrow wrote again to Mr Jowett, 13th/ 25th 
October, enclosing a certificate from Mr Lipovzoff, which 
read : — 

" Testifio : — Dominum Burro ab initio usque ad hoc 



134 DEVELOPS UNEXPECTED TALENTS [1834 

tempus summa cum diligentia et studio in re Mantshurica 
laborasse, Lipovzoff." 

He also reported progress as regards the printing, and 
promised (D.V.) that the entire undertaking should be 
completed by the first of May ; but the letter was princi- 
pally concerned with the projected expedition to Kiakhta, 
to distribute the books he was so busily occupied in 
printing. He repeated his former arguments, urging the 
Committee to send an agent to Kiakhta. " I am a person 
of few words," he assured Mr Jowett, " and will there- 
fore state without circumlocution that I am willing to 
become that agent. I speak Russ, Manchu, and the 
Tartar or broken Turkish of the Russian Steppes, and 
have also some knowledge of Chinese, which I might 
easily improve." As regards the danger to himself of 
such a hazardous undertaking, the conversion of the 
Tartar would never be achieved without danger to some- 
one. He had become acquainted with many of the 
Tartars resident in St Petersburg, whose language he 
had learned through conversing with his servant (a native 
of Bucharia [Bokhara] ), and he had become " much 
attached to them ; for their conscientiousness, honesty, 
and fidelity are beyond all praise." 

To this further offer Mr Jowett replied : — 

" Be not disheartened, even though the Committee 
postpone for the present the consideration of your enter- 
prising, not to say intrepid, proposal. Thus much, 
however, I may venture to say : that the offer is more 
likely to be accepted now, than when you first made it. 
If, when the time approaches for executing such a plan, 
you give us reason to believe that a more mature 
consideration of it in all its bearings still leaves you in 
hope of a successful result, and in heart for making the 
attempt, my own opinion is that the offer will ultimately 
be accepted, and that very cordially." 



CHAPTER IX 

NOVEMBER 1834 — SEPTEMBER 1835 

T^ORROW was an unconventional editor. He foresaw 
■*-* the interminable delays likely to arise from allowing 
workmen to incorporate his corrections in the type. To 
obviate these, he first corrected the proof, then, proceeding 
to the printing office, he made with his own hands the 
necessary alterations in the type. This involved only 
two proofs, the second to be submitted to Mr Lipovzoff, 
instead of some half a dozen that otherwise would have 
been necessary. During these days Borrow was ubiquitous. 
Even the binder required his assistance, " for everything 
goes wrong without a strict surveillance." 

Borrow had passed through the crisis in his career. 
Stricken with fever, which was followed by an attack of 
the " Horrors " (only to be driven away by port wine), he 
had scarcely found time in which to eat or sleep. He 
had emerged triumphantly from the ordeal, and if he had 
" almost killed Beneze and his lads " x with work, he had 
not spared himself. If he had to report, as he did, that 
" my two compositors, whom I had instructed in all the 
mysteries of Manchu composition, are in the hospital, 
down with the brain fever," 2 he himself had grown thin 
from the incessant toil. 

The simple manliness and restrained dignity of his 

1 John Hasfeldt. 

2 Letter to Mr J. Tarn, Treasurer of the Bible Society, 15th /27th 
December 1834. 

135 



136 OCCUPATIONS IN ST PETERSBURG [1834 

justification had produced a marked effect upon the 
authorities at home. If the rebuke administered by 
Mr Jowett had been mild, his acknowledgment of the 
reply that it had called forth was most cordial and friendly. 
After assuring Borrow of the Committee's high satisfaction 
at the way in which its interests had been looked after, he 
proceeds sincerely to deprecate anything in his previous 
letter which may have caused Borrow pain, and continues : 

" Yet I scarcely know how to be sorry for what has 
been the occasion of drawing from you (what you might 
otherwise have kept locked up in your own breast) 
the very interesting story of your labours, vexations, 
disappointments, vigilance, address, perseverance, and 
successes. How you were able in your solitude to keep 
up your spirits in the face of so many impediments, 
apparently insurmountable, I know not. . . . Do not fear 
that we should in any way interrupt your proceedings. 
We know our interest too well to interfere with an agent 
who has shown so much address in planning, and so much 
diligence in effecting, the execution of our wishes." 

These encouraging words were followed by a request 
that he would keep a careful account of all extraordinary 
expenses, that they might be duly met by the Society : — 

" I allude, you perceive, to such things," the letter goes 
on to explain, " as your journies hue et illuc in quest of a 
better market, and to the occasional bribes to disheartened 
workmen. In all matters of this kind the Society is clearly 
your debtor." Borrow replied with a flash of his old 
independent spirit : " I return my most grateful thanks for 
this most considerate intimation, which, nevertheless, I 
cannot avail myself of, as, according to one of the articles 
of my agreement, my salary of ^"200 was to cover all extra 
expenses. Petersburg is doubtless the dearest capital in 
Europe, and expenses meet an individual, especially one 
situated as I have been, at every turn and corner ; but an 
agreement is not to be broken on that account." l 

That the Committee, even before this proof of his 
ability, had been well pleased with their engagement of 

1 Letter to the Rev. Joseph Jowett, 3rd/ 15th May 1835. 



ix.] FAME 137 

Borrow is shown by the acknowledgment made in the 
Society's Thirtieth Annual Report : " Mr Borrow has not 
disappointed the expectation entertained." 

There were other words of encouragement to cheer him 
in his labours. His mother wrote in September of that 
year, telling him how, at a Bible Society's gathering at 
Norwich, which had lasted the whole of a week, his name 
"was sounded through the Hall by Mr Gurney and Mr 
Cunningham " ; telling how he had left his home and his 
friends to do God's work in a foreign land, calling upon 
their fellow-citizens to offer up prayers beseeching the 
Almighty to vouchsafe to him health and strength that 
the great work he had undertaken might be completed. 
" All this is very pleasing to me," added the proud old lady. 
" God bless you ! " 

From Mrs Clarke of Oulton Hall, with whom he kept 
up a correspondence, he heard how his name had been 
mentioned at many of the Society's meetings during 
the year, and how the Rev. Francis Cunningham had 
referred to him as " one of the most extraordinary and 
interesting individuals of the present day." Even at 
that date, viz., before the receipt of the remarkable 
account of his labours, the members and officials of the 
Bible Society seem to have come to the conclusion that 
he had achieved far more than they had any reason 
to expect of him. Their subsequent approval is shown 
by the manner in which they caused his two letters of 
8th /20th and 13th /25th October to be circulated among 
the influential members of the Society, until at last 
they had reached the Rev. F. Cunningham and Mrs 
Clarke. 

About the middle of January (old style) 1835, Borrow 
placed in the hands of Baron Schilling a copy of each 
of the four Gospels in Manchu, to be conveyed to the 
Bible Society by one of the couriers attached to the 
Foreign Department at St Petersburg; but they did not 
reach Earl Street until several weeks later. There were 



138 OCCUPATIONS IN ST PETERSBURG [1834 

however, still the remaining four volumes to complete, and 
many more difficulties to overcome. 

One vexation that presented itself was a difference of 
opinion between Borrow and Lipovzoff, who " thought 
proper, when the Father Almighty is addressed, to erase 
the personal and possessive pronouns thou or thine, as often 
as they occur, and in their stead to make use of the noun 
as the case may require. For example, ' O Father ! thou 
art merciful ' he would render, ' O Father ! the Father 
is merciful.' " Borrow protested, but Lipovzoff, who was 
" a gentleman, whom the slightest contradiction never 
fails to incense to a most incredible degree," told him 
that he talked nonsense, and refused to concede any- 
thing. 1 Lipovzoff, who had on his side the Chinese 
scholars and unlimited powers as official censor (from 
whose decree there was no appeal) over his own work, 
carried his point. He urged that " amongst the Chinese 
and Tartars, none but the dregs of society were ever 
addressed in the second person ; and that it would be 
most uncouth and indecent to speak of the Almighty 
as if He were a servant or a slave." This difficulty 
of the verbal ornament of the East was one that the 
Bible Society had frequently met with in the past. It 
was rightly considered as ill-fitting a translation of the 
words of Christ. Simplicity of diction was to be preserved 
at all costs, whatever might be the rule with secular books. 
Mr Jowett had warned Borrow to "beware of confounding 
the two distinct ideas of translation and interpretation ! " 2 
and also informed him that " the passion for honorific- 

1 Letter from Borrow to the Rev. J. Jowett, 20th Feb./4th March 
1834. In his Report on Puerot's translation, received on 23rd Sep. 1835, 
Borrow writes : " To translate literally, or even closely, according to the 
common acceptation of the term, into the Manchu language is of all 
impossibilities the greatest ; partly from the grammatical structure of 
the language, and partly from the abundance of its idioms." The 
lack of "some of those conjunctions generally considered as indis- 
pensable " was one of the chief difficulties. 

2 Letter, 31st Dec. 1834. 



ix.] THE GOVERNMENTS VETO 139 

abilitudinity is a vice of Asiatic languages, which a 
Scripture translator, above all others, ought to beware of 
countenancing." * 

Well might Borrow write to Mr Jowett, " How I have 
been enabled to maintain terms of friendship and 
familiarity with Mr Lipovzoff, and yet fulfil the part 
which those who employ me expect me to fulfil, I am much 
at a loss to conjecture ; and yet such is really the case." 2 
On the whole, however, the two men worked harmoniously 
together, the censor-translator being usually amenable to 
editorial reason and suggestion ; and Borrow was able 
to assure Mr Jowett that with the exception of this one 
instance " the word of God has been rendered into Manchu 
as nearly and closely as the idiom of a very singular 
language would permit." 

Borrow's mind continued to dwell upon the project of 
penetrating into China and distributing the Scriptures 
himself. He wrote again, repeating " the assurance 
that I am ready to attempt anything which the Society 
may wish me to execute, and, at a moment's warning, will 
direct my course towards Canton, Pekin, or the court of the 
Grand Lama." 3 The project had, however, to be aban- 
doned. The Russian Government, desirous of maintaining 
friendly relations with China, declined to risk her displeasure 
for a missionary project in which Russia had neither interest 
nor reasonable expectation of gain. In agreeing to issue a 
passport such as Borrow desired, it stipulated that he should 
carry with him " not one single Manchu Bible thither." * 
In spite of this discouragement, Borrow wrote to Mr Jowett 
with regard to the Chinese programme, " / again repeat 
that I am at command!' 5 

This determination on Borrow's part to become a 
missionary filled his mother with alarm. She had only 
one son now, and the very thought of his going into wild 

1 Letter, 31st Dec. 1834. 2 Letter, 20th Feb. / 4th Mar. 1835. 

3 Letter, 20th Feb. / 4th Mar. 1835. 

4 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 3rd/ 15th May 1835. 5 Ibid. 



140 OCCUPATIONS IN ST PETERSBURG [1835 

and unknown regions seemed to her tantamount to his 
going to his death. Mrs Clarke also expressed strong 
disapproval of the project. " I must tell you," she wrote, 
" that your letter chilled me when I read your intention of 
going as a Missionary or Agent, with the Manchu Scrip- 
tures in your hand, to the Tartars, the land of incalculable 
dangers." 

By the middle of May 1835 Borrow saw the end of his 
labours in sight. On 3rd / 1 5th May he wrote asking for 
instructions relative to the despatch of the bulk of the 
volumes, and also as to the disposal of the type. " As 
for myself," he continues, " I suppose I must return to 
England, as my task will be speedily completed. I hope 
the Society are convinced that I have served them faith- 
fully, and that I have spared no labour to bring out the 
work, which they did me the honor of confiding to me, 
correctly and within as short a time as possible. At my 
return, if the Society think that I can still prove of utility 
to them, I shall be most happy to devote myself still to 
their service. I am a person full of faults and weaknesses, 
as I am every day reminded by bitter experience, but I 
am certain that my zeal and fidelity towards those who 
put confidence in me are not to be shaken." l 

On 1 5th / 27th June he reported the printing completed 
and six out of the eight volumes bound, and that as soon 
as the remaining two volumes were ready, he intended to 
take his departure from St Petersburg ; but a new 
difficulty arose. The East had laid a heavy hand upon St 
Petersburg. " To-morrow, please God ! " met the energetic 
Westerner at every turn. The bookbinder delayed six 
weeks because he could not procure some paper he 
required. But the real obstacle to the despatch of the 
books was the non-arrival of the Government sanction to 
their shipment. Nothing was permitted to move either in 
or out of the sacred city of the Tsars without official 
permission. Probably those responsible for the adminis- 
1 Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 3rd /15th May 1835. 



ix.] BORROAV'S DEFIANCE 141 

tration of affairs had never in their experience been called 
upon to deal with a man such as Borrow. To apply to him 
the customary rules of procedure was to bring upon " the 
House of Interior Affairs " a series of visits and demands 
that must have left it limp with astonishment. 

On i6th/28th July Borrow wrote to the Bible Society, 
" I herewith send you a bill of lading for six of the eight 
parts of the New Testament, which I have at last obtained 
permission to send away, after having paid sixteen visits to 
the House of Interior Affairs." 1 He expresses a hope that 
in another fortnight he will have despatched the remaining 
two volumes and have " bidden adieu to Russia"; but it 
was dangerous to anticipate the official course of events 
in Russia. Even to the last Borrow was tormented by 
red tape. Early in August the last two volumes were 
ready for shipment to England ; but he could not obtain 
the necessary permission. He was told that he ought 
never to have printed the work, in spite of the license that 
had been granted, and that grave doubts existed in the 
official mind as to whether or no he really were an agent 
of the Bible Society. At length Borrow lost patience and 
told the officials that during the week following the books 
would be despatched, with or without permission, and he 
warned them to have a care how they acted. These 
strong measures seem to have produced the desired result. 

Despite his many occupations on behalf of the Bible 
Society, Borrow found time in which to translate into 
Russian the first three Homilies of the Church of England, 
and into Manchu the Second. His desire was that the 
Homily Society should cause these translations to be 
printed, and in a letter to the Rev. Francis Cunningham 
he strove to enlist his interest in the project, offering the 
translations without fee to the Society if they chose to 
make use of them. 2 As " a zealous, though most unworthy, 

1 Letter to Mr J. Tarn. 

2 None of these translations ever appeared, owing to the refusal 
of the Russian Government to grant permission. John Hasfeldt wrote 



142 OCCUPATIONS IN ST PETERSBURG [1835 

member of the Anglican Church," he found that his 
"cheeks glowed with shame at seeing dissenters, 
English and American, busily employed in circulat- 
ing Tracts in the Russian tongue, whilst the members 
of the Church were following their secular concerns, 
almost regardless of things spiritual in respect to the 
Russian population." 1 

Borrow also translated into English " one of the 
sacred books of Boudh, or Fo," from Baron Schilling 
de Canstadt's library. The principal occupation of his 
leisure hours, however, was a collection of translations, 
which he had printed by Schultz & Beneze, and published 
(3rd /15th June 1835) under the title of Targum, or 
Metrical Translations from TJiirty Languages and 
Dialects? In a prefatory note, the collection is referred 
to as "selections from a huge and undigested mass of 

to Borrow, June 1837, apropos of the project: "You know the 
Russian priesthood cannot suffer foreigners to mix themselves up in 
the affairs of the Orthodox Church. The same would have 
happened to the New Testament itself. You may certainly print in 

the Manchu-Tartar or what the d 1 you choose, only not in 

Russian, for that the long-bearded he-goats do not like." 

1 Letter to Rev. F. Cunningham, 17th /29th Nov. 1834. 

2 The principal interest in Targum lies in the number of 
languages and dialects from which the poems are translated ; for it 
must be confessed that Borrow's verse translations have no very 
great claim to attention on account of their literary merit. The 
" Thirty Languages " were, in reality, thirty-five, viz. : — 



Ancient British. 


Gaelic. 


Portuguese, 


„ Danish. 


German. 


Provencal. 


„ Irish. 


Greek. 


Romany. 


„ Norse. 


Hebrew. 


Russian. 


Anglo-Saxon. 


Irish. 


Spanish. 


Arabic. 


Italian. 


Suabian. 


Cambrian British. 


Latin. 


Swedish. 


Chinese. 


Malo-Russian. 


Tartar. 


Danish. 


Manchu. 


Tibetan. 


Dutch. 


Modern Greek. 


Turkish. 


Finnish. 


Persian. 


Welsh. 


French. 


Polish. 





IX.] A HURRIED VISIT TO MOSCOW 143 

translation, accumulated during several years devoted 
to philological pursuits." Three months later he pub- 
lished another collection entitled The Talisman, From 
the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. With Other Pieces} 
There were seven poems in all, two after Pushkin, one 
from the Malo - Russian, one from Mickiewicz, and 
three "ancient Russian Songs." Again the printers 
were Schultz & Beneze. Each of these editions appears 
to have been limited to one hundred copies. 2 

Writing in the Athenceum? J. P. H[asfeldt] says : — 
"The work is a pearl in literature, and, like pearls, 
derives value from its scarcity, for the whole edition was 
limited to about a hundred copies." W. B. Donne 
admired the translations immensely, considering "the 
language and rhythm as vastly superior to Macaulay's 
Lays of Ancietit Rome." 4 

Whilst the last two volumes of the Manchu New 
Testament were waiting for paper (probably for end- 
papers), Borrow determined to pay a hurried visit to 
Moscow, " by far the most remarkable city it has ever 
been my fortune to see." One of his principal objects 
in visiting the ancient capital of Russia was to see 
the gypsies, who flourished there as they flourished no- 
where else in Europe. They numbered several thousands, 
and many of them inhabited large and handsome houses, 
drove in their carriages, and were " distinguishable from the 
genteel class of the Russians only ... by superior per- 
sonal advantages and mental accomplishments." 5 For this 

1 A copy was presented by John Hasfeldt to Pushkin, who 
expressed in a note to Borrow his gratification at receiving the book, 
and his regret at not having met the translator. 

2 These two volumes were printed in one and published at a 
later date by Messrs Jarrold & Son, London & Norwich. 

3 5th March 1836. 

4 From a letter to Borrow from Dr Gordon Hake. 

5 Borrow's Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received 
23rd September 1835. 



144 OCCUPATIONS IN ST PETERSBURG [1835 

unusual state of prosperity the women were responsible, 
" having from time immemorial cultivated their vocal 
powers to such an extent that, although in the heart of 
a country in which the vocal art has arrived at greater 
perfection than in any other part of the world, the principal 
Gypsy choirs in Moscow are allowed by the general voice 
of the public to be unrivalled and to bear away the palm 
from all competitors. It is a fact notorious in Russia that 
the celebrated Catalani was so filled with admiration for 
the powers of voice displayed by one of the Gypsy 
songsters, who, after the former had sung before a 
splendid audience at Moscow, stepped forward and with an 
astonishing burst of melody ravished every ear, that she 
[Catalani] tore from her own shoulders a shawl of immense 
value which had been presented to her by the Pope, and 
embracing the Gypsy, compelled her to accept it, saying 
that it had been originally intended for the matchless 
singer, which she now discovered was not herself." * 

These Russian gypsy singers lived luxurious lives and 
frequently married Russian gentry or even the nobility. 
It was only the successes, however, who achieved such 
distinction, and there were "a great number of low, 
vulgar, and profligate females who sing in taverns, or at 
the various gardens in the neighbourhood, and whose 
husbands and male connections subsist by horse-jobbing 
and such kinds of low traffic." 2 

One fine evening Borrow hired a calash and drove out 
to Marina Rotze, "a kind of sylvan garden," about one 
and a half miles out of Moscow, where this particular 
class of Romanys resorted. " Upon, my arriving there," he 
writes, " the Gypsies swarmed out of their tents and from 
the little tracteer or tavern, and surrounded me. Stand- 
ing on the seat of the calash, I addressed them in a loud 
voice in the dialect of the English Gypsies, with which 
I have some slight acquaintance. A scream of wonder 

1 Borrow's Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received 
23rd September 1835. 2 Ibid. 



ix.] A GYPSY WELCOME 145 

instantly arose, and welcomes and greetings were poured 
forth in torrents of musical Romany, amongst which, 
however, the most pronounced cry was : ah kak mi toute 
karmuma l — ' Oh how we love you ' ; for at first they sup- 
posed me to be one of their brothers, who, they said, 
were wandering about in Turkey, China, and other parts, 
and that I had come over the great pawnee, or water, to 
visit them."' 2 

On several other occasions during his stay at Moscow, 
Borrow went out to Marina Rotze, to hold converse with 
the gypsies. He " spoke to them upon their sinful manner 
of living," about Christianity and the advent of Christ, to 
which the gypsies listened with attention, but apparently 
not much profit. The promise that they would soon be 
able to obtain the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in their 
own tongue interested them far more on account of the 
pleasurable strangeness of the idea, than from any antici- 
pation that they might derive spiritual comfort from such 
writings. 

Returning to St Petersburg from Moscow, after four 
days' absence, Borrow completed his work, settled up 
his affairs, bade his friends good-bye, and on 28th 
August /9th September left for Cronstadt to take the 
packet for Liibeck. The authorities seem to have raised 
no objection to his departure. His passport bore the date 
28th August O/S (the actual day he left) and described 
him as " of stature, tall — hair, grey — face, oval — forehead, 
medium — eyebrows, blonde — eyes, brown — nose and 
mouth, medium — chin, round." 

Borrow's work at St Petersburg gave entire satisfac- 
tion to the Bible Society. The Official Report for the 
year 1835 informed the members that — 

" The printing of the Manchu New Testament in St 

1 Kak my tut kamasa. 

2 Borrow's Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received 
23rd September 1835. He gives an account of the episode in The 
Gypsies of Spain, page 6. 

K 



146 OCCUPATIONS IN ST PETERSBURG [1835 

Petersburg is now drawing to a conclusion. Mr G. 
Borrow, who has had to superintend the work, has in every 
way afforded satisfaction to the Committee. They have 
reason to believe that his acquirements in the language 
are of the most respectable order ; while the devoted 
diligence with which he has laboured, and the skill he has 
shown in surmounting difficulties, and conducting his 
negotiations for the advantage of the Society, justly 
entitle him to this public acknowledgment of his 
services." x 

Of the actual work itself John Hasfeldt justly wrote : 

" I can only say, that it is a beautiful edition of an 
oriental work — that it is printed with great care on a fine 
imitation of Chinese paper, made on purpose. At the 
outset, Mr Borrow spent weeks and months in the printing 
office to make the compositors acquainted with the 
intricate Manchu types ; and that, as for the contents, I 
am assured by well-informed persons, that this transla- 
tion is remarkable for the correctness and fidelity with 
which it has been executed." 2 

The total cost to the Society of his labours in connection 
with the transcription of Puerot's MSJand printing and bind- 
ing one thousand copies of Lipovzoff's New Testament had 
reached the very considerable sum of £2600. What the 
amount would have been if Borrow had not proved a prince 
of bargainers, it is impossible to imagine. The entire 
edition was sent to Earl Street, and eventually distri- 
buted in China as occasion offered. An edition of the 
Gospels in this version has recently been reprinted, and 
is still in use among certain tribes in Mongolia. 

Borrow arrived in London somewhere about 20th 
September (new style), after an absence of a little more 
than two years. He went to St Petersburg " prejudiced 
against the country, the government, and the people ; the 
first is much more agreeable than is generally supposed ; 
the second is seemingly the best adapted for so vast an 

1 The Thirty-First Annual Report. 

2 Athena-um, 5th March 1836. 



ix.] NORWICH ONCE MORE 147 

empire ; and the third, even the lowest classes, are in general 
kind, hospitable, and benevolent." : 

On 23rd September Borrow was still in London writing 
his report to the General Committee upon his recent 
labours. In all probability he left immediately afterwards 
for Norwich, there to await events. 

1 Borrow's Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received 
23rd September 1835. 



CHAPTER X 

OCTOBER 1835 — JANUARY 1 836 

DORROW had strong hopes that the Bible Society 
■*-* would continue to employ him. Mr Brandram had 
written (5th June 1835) that the Committee "will not very 
willingly suffer themselves to be deprived of your services." 
From Russia Borrow had written to his mother : x 

" They [the Bible Society] place great confidence in 
me, and I am firmly resolved to do all in my power to 
prove that they have not misplaced that confidence. I 
dare say that when I return home they will always be happy 
to employ me to edit their Bibles, and there is no employ- 
ment in the whole world which I should prefer and for 
which I am better fitted. I shall, moreover, endeavour to 
get ordained." 

On another occasion he wrote, also to his mother : 

" I hope that the Bible Society will employ me upon 
something new, for I have of late led an active life, and 
dread the thought of having nothing to do except studying 
as formerly, and I am by no means certain that I could sit 
down to study now. I can do anything if it is to turn to 
any account ; but it is very hard to dig holes in the sand 
and fill them up again, as I used to do. However, I hope 
God will find me something on which I can employ myself 
with credit and profit. I should like very much to get into 
the Church, though I suppose that that, like all other 
professions, is overstocked." 

Mrs Borrow reminded him that he had a good home 
ready to receive him, and a mother grown lonely with 
1 i8th/30th June 1834. 

148 



x.] A VISIT TO OULTON HALL 149 

long waiting. She told him, among other things, that 
she had spent none of the money that he had so gener- 
ously and unsparingly sent her. 

Borrow certainly had every reason to expect further 
employment. He had proved himself not only a thoroughly 
qualified editor ; but had discovered business qualities 
that must have astonished and delighted the General 
Committee. Above all he had brought to a most success- 
ful conclusion a venture that, but for his ability and 
address, would in all probability have failed utterly. The 
application for permission to proceed with the distribution 
had, it is true, been unsuccessful ; but there was, as Mr 
Brandram wrote, the " seed laid up in the granary ; but 
' it is not yet written ' that the sowers are to go forth 
to sow." 

After remaining for a short time with his mother at 
Norwich, Borrow appears to have paid a visit to his 
friends the Skeppers of Oulton. Old Mrs Skepper, Mrs 
Clarke's mother, had just died, and it is a proof of Borrow's 
intimacy with the family that he should be invited to 
stay with them whilst they were still in mourning. 
Although there is no record of the date when he arrived 
at Oulton, he is known to have been there on 9th October, 
when he addressed a Bible Society meeting, about which 
he wrote the following delectable postcript to a letter 
he addressed to Mr Brandram : x 

" There has been a Bible meeting at Oulton, in Suffolk, 
to which I was invited. The speaking produced such 
an effect, that some of the most vicious characters in 
the neighbourhood have become weekly subscribers to 
the Branch Society. So says the Chronicle of Norfolk 
in its report." The actual paragraph read : 

" It will doubtless afford satisfaction to the Christian 
public to learn that many poor individuals in this neigh- 
bourhood, who previous to attending this meeting were 
averse to the cause or indifferent to it, had their feelings 
so aroused by what was communicated to them, that 

1 27th October 1835. 



150 THE MISSION TO PORTUGAL [1835 

they have since voluntarily subscribed to the Bible 
Society, actuated by the hope of becoming humbly instru- 
mental in extending the dominion of the true light, and 
of circumscribing the domains of darkness and of Satan." 

On returning to the quiet of the old Cathedral city, 
Borrow had an opportunity of resting and meditating 
upon the events of the last two years ; but he soon 
became restless and tired of inaction. 1 " I am weary of 
doing nothing, and am sighing for employment," 2 he wrote. 
He had impatiently awaited some word from Earl Street, 
where, seemingly, he had discussed various plans for 
the future, including a journey to Portugal and Spain, 
as well as the printing in Armenian of an edition of 
the New Testament. Hearing nothing from Mr Jowett, 
he wrote begging to be excused for reminding him that 
he was ready to undertake any task that might be allotted 
to him. 

On the day following, he received a letter from 
Mr Brandram telling of how a resolution had been passed 
that he should go to Portugal. Then the writer's heart 
misgave him. In his mind's eye he saw Borrow set down 
at Oporto. What would he do? Fearful that the door 
was not sufficiently open to justify the step, he had 
suggested the suspension of the resolution. Borrow was 
asked what he himself thought. What did he think 
of China, and could he foresee any prospect for the distribu- 
tion of the Scriptures there ? " Favour us with your 
thoughts," Mr Brandram wrote. " Experimental agency 
in a Society like ours is a formidable undertaking." 
Borrow replied the same day, 3 

" As you ask me to favour you with my thoughts, 
I certainly will ; for I have thought much upon the 
matters in question, and the result I will communicate 

1 His salary was paid continuously, and included the period of 
rest between the Russian and Peninsula expeditions. 

2 Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 26th October 1S35. 

3 In a letter dated 27th October 1835. 



x.] PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 151 

to you in a very few words. I decidedly approve (and 
so do all the religious friends whom I have communicated 
it to) of the plan of a journey to Portugal, and am sorry 
that it has been suspended, though I am convinced that 
your own benevolent and excellent heart was the cause, 
unwilling to fling me into an undertaking which you 
supposed might be attended with peril and difficulty. 
Therefore I wish it to be clearly understood that I am 
perfectly willing to undertake the expedition, nay, to 
extend it into Spain, to visit the town and country, to 
discourse with the people, especially those connected with 
institutions for infantine education, and to learn what 
ways and opportunities present themselves for conveying 
the Gospel into those benighted countries. I will more- 
over undertake, with the blessing of God, to draw up a 
small volume of what I shall have seen and heard there, 
which cannot fail to be interesting, and if patronised by 
the Society will probably help to cover the expenses of 
the expedition. On my return I can commence the 
Armenian Testament, and whilst I am editing that, I 
may be acquiring much vulgar Chinese from some un- 
employed Lascar or stray Cantonman whom I may pick 
up upon the wharves, and then ... to China. I have 
no more to say, for were I to pen twenty pages, and 
I have time enough for so doing, I could communicate 
nothing which would make my views more clear." 

The earnestness of this letter seems effectually to have 
dissipated Mr Brandram's scruples, for events moved 
forward with astonishing rapidity. Four days after the 
receipt of Borrow's letter, a resolution was adopted by the 
Committee to the following effect : — 

" That Mr Borrow be requested to proceed forth- 
with to Lisbon and Oporto for the purpose of visiting the 
Society's correspondents there, and of making further 
enquiries respecting the means and channels which may 
offer for promoting the circulation of the Holy Scriptures 
in Portugal." 1 

Mr Brandram gave Borrow two letters of introduction, 
one to John Wilby, a merchant at Lisbon, and the other to 

1 Minutes of the General Committee of the Bible Society, 2nd 
Nov. 1835. 



152 THE MISSION TO PORTUGAL [1835 

the British Chaplain, the Rev. E. Whiteley. Having 
explained to Mr Whiteley how Borrow had recently been 
employed in St Petersburg in editing the Manchu New 
Testament, he wrote : — 

" We have some prospect of his eventually going to 
China ; but having proved by experience that he possesses 
an order of talent remarkably suited to the purposes of our 
Society, we have felt unwilling to interrupt our connection 
with him with the termination of his engagement at St 
Petersburg. In the interval we have thought that he 
might advantageously visit Portugal, and strengthen your 
hands and those of other friends, and see whether he could 
not extend the promising opening at present existing. He 
has no specific instructions, though he is enjoined to confer 
very fully with yourself and Mr Wilby of Lisbon. 

" I have mentioned his recent occupation at St Peters- 
burg, and you may perhaps think that there is little affinity 
between it and his present visit to Portugal. But Mr 
Borrow possesses no little tact in addressing himself to 
anything. With Portugal he is already acquainted, and 
speaks the language. He proposes visiting several of the 
principal cities and towns. . . . 

" Our correspondence about Spain is at this moment 
singularly interesting, and if it continues so, and the way 
seems to open, Mr Borrow will cross the frontier and go 
and enquire what can be done there. We believe him to 
be one who is endowed with no small portion of address 
and a spirit of enterprise. I recommend him to your 
kind attentions, and I anticipate your thanks for so doing, 
after you shall have become acquainted with him. Do 
not, however, be too hasty in forming your judgment." 

This letter outlines very clearly what was in the minds 
of the Committee in sending Borrow to Portugal. He was 
to spy out the land and advise the home authorities in 
what direction he would be most likely to prove useful. 
He was in particular to direct his attention to schools, and 
was " authorised to be liberal in giving New Testaments." 
Furthermore, he was to be permitted to draw upon the 
Society's agents to the extent of one hundred pounds. 

The most significant part of this letter is the passage 



x.] BORROW SAILS FOR LISBON 153 

relating to China. It leaves no doubt that Borrow's 
reiterated requests to be employed in distributing the 
Manchu New Testament had appealed most strongly to 
the General Committee. Mr Brandram was evidently in 
doubt as to how Borrow would strike his correspondent as 
an agent of the Bible Society, hence his warning against 
a hasty judgment. Apparently this letter was never 
presented, as it was found among Borrow's papers, and 
Mr Whiteley had to form his opinion entirely unaided. 

On 6th November Borrow sailed from the Thames for 
Lisbon in the steamship London Merchant. The voyage 
was fair for the time of year, and was marked only by the 
tragic occurrence of a sailor falling from the cross-trees 
into the sea and being drowned. The man had dreamed 
his fate a few minutes previously, and had told Borrow of 
the circumstances on coming up from below. 1 

Borrow had scarcely been in Lisbon an hour before he 
heartily wished himself "back in Russia . . . where I had 
left cherished friends and warm affections." The Customs- 
house officers irritated him, first with their dilatoriness, 
then by the minuteness with which they examined every 
article of which he was possessed. Again, there was the 
difficulty of obtaining a suitable lodging, which when 
eventually found proved to be " dark, dirty and exceed- 
ingly expensive without attendance." Mr Wilby was in 
the country and not expected to return for a week. It 
would also appear that the British Chaplain was likewise 
away. Thus Borrow found himself with no one to advise 
him as to the first step he should take. This in itself was 
no very great drawback ; but he felt very much a stranger 
in a city that struck him as detestable. 

Determined to commence operations according to 
the dictates of his own judgment, he first engaged a 
Portuguese servant that he might have ample oppor- 

1 In his first letter from Spain, addressed to Rev. J. Jowett (30th 
Nov. 1835), Borrow tells of this incident in practically the same words 
as it appears in The Bible hi Spain, pages 1-3. 



154 THE MISSION TO PORTUGAL [1835 

tunities of perfecting himself in the language. He was 
fortunate in his selection, for Antonio turned out an 
excellent fellow, who " always served me with the greatest 
fidelity, and . . . exhibited an assiduity and a wish to 
please which afforded me the utmost satisfaction." x 

When Borrow arrived in Portugal, it was to find it 
gasping and dazed by eight years of civil war (1826- 1834). 
In 1807, when Junot invaded the country, the Royal 
House of Braganza had sailed for Brazil. In 1816 Dom 
Joao succeeded to the thrones of Brazil and Portugal, 
and six years later he arrived in Portugal, leaving behind 
him as Viceroy his son Dom Pedro, who promptly 
declared himself Emperor of Brazil. Dom Joao died in 
1826, leaving, in addition to the self-styled Emperor of 
Brazil, another son, Miguel. Dom Pedro relinquished 
his claim to the throne of Portugal in favour of his 
seven years old daughter, Maria da Gloria, whose right 
was contested by her uncle Dom Miguel. In 1834 Dom 
Miguel resigned his imaginary rights to the throne by 
the Convention of Evora, and departed from the country 
that for eight years had been at war with itself, and for 
seven with a foreign invader. 

Borrow proceeded to acquaint himself with the state 
of affairs in Lisbon and the surrounding country, that 
he might transmit a full account to the Bible Society. 
He visited every part of the city, losing no opportunity 
of entering into conversation with anyone with whom 
he came in contact. The people he found indifferent to 
religion, the lower orders in particular. They laughed 
in his face when he enquired if ever they confessed them- 
selves, and a muleteer on being asked if he reverenced 
the cross, " instantly flew into a rage, stamped violently, 
and, spitting on the ground, said it was a piece of stone, 
and that he should have no more objection to spit upon 
it than the stones on which he trod." 2 

1 The Bible in Spain, pages 73-4. 

- Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 30th Nov. 1835. 



x] SPYING OUT THE LAND 155 

Many of the people could read, as they proved when 
asked to do so from the Portuguese New Testament ; 
but of all those whom he addressed none appeared to 
have read the Scriptures, or to know anything of what 
they contain. 

After spending four or five days at Lisbon, Borrow, 
accompanied by Antonio, proceeded to Cintra. 1 Here 
he pursued the same method, also visiting the schools 
and enquiring into the nature of the religious instruction. 
During his stay of four days, he " traversed the country 
in all directions, riding into the fields, where I saw the 
peasants at work, and entering into discourse with them, 
and notwithstanding many of my questions must have 
appeared to them very singular, I never experienced any 
incivility, though they frequently answered me with smiles 
and laughter." 2 

From Cintra he proceeded on horseback to Mafra, a 
large village some three leagues distant. Everywhere he 
subjected the inhabitants to a searching cross-examina- 
tion, laying bare their minds upon religious matters, 
experiencing surprise at the " free and unembarrassed 
manner in which the Portuguese peasantry sustain a 
conversation, and the purity of the language in which 
they express their thoughts," 3 although few could read 
or write. 

On the return journey from Mafra to Cintra he nearly 
lost his life, owing to the girth of his saddle breaking 
during his horse's exertions in climbing a hill. Borrow 
was cast violently to the ground ; but fortunately on the 
right side, otherwise he would in all probability have been 
bruised to death by tumbling down the steep hill-side. As 

1 Dr Knapp states that upon this expedition he was accompanied 
by Captain John Rowland Heyland of the 35th Regiment of Foot, 
whose acquaintance he had made on the voyage out. — Life of George 
Borrow, i., page 234. 

- Letter to Rev. J. Jovvett, 30th Nov. 1835. 

3 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 15th Dec. 1835. 



156 THE MISSION TO PORTUGAL [1835 

it was, he was dazed, and felt the effects of his mishap for 
several days. 

On his return to Lisbon, Borrow found that Mr Wilby 
was back, and he had many opportunities of taking 
counsel with him as to the best means to be adopted to 
further the Society's ends. He learned that four hundred 
copies of the Bible and the New Testament had arrived, 
and it was decided to begin operations at once. Mr Wilby 
recommended the booksellers as the best medium of 
distribution ; but Borrow urged strongly that at least half 
of the available copies " should be entrusted to colporteurs," 
who were to receive a commission upon every copy sold. 
To this Mr Wilby agreed, provided the operations of the 
colporteurs were restricted to Lisbon, as there was con- 
siderable danger in the country, where the priests were 
very powerful and might urge the people to mishandle, or 
even assassinate, the bearers of the Word. 

By nature Borrow was not addicted to half measures. 
His whole record as an agent of the Bible Society was of 
a series of determined onslaughts upon the obstacles, 
animate and inanimate, that beset his path. Sometimes 
he took away the breath of his adversaries by the very 
vigour of his attack, and, like the old Northern leaders, 
whose deeds he wished to give to an un eager world in 
translated verse, he faced great dangers and achieved 
great ends. Recognising that the darkest region is most 
in need of light, he enquired of Mr Wilby in what province 
of Portugal were to be found the most ignorant and 
benighted people, and on being told the Alemtejo (the 
other side of the Tagus), he immediately announced his 
intention of making a journey through it, in order to 
discover how dense spiritual gloom could really be in an 
ostensibly Christian country. 

The Alemtejo was an unprepossessing country, con- 
sisting for the most part of " heaths, broken by knolls and 
gloomy dingles, swamps and forests of stunted pine," with 
but few hills and mountains. The place was infested 



x.] "THE PRECIOUS LITTLE TRACTS" 157 

with banditti, and robberies, accompanied by horrible 
murders, were of constant occurrence. On 6th December, 
accompanied by his servant Antonio, Borrow set out 
for Evora, the principal town, formerly a seat of the 
dreaded Inquisition, which lies about sixty miles east 
of Lisbon. After many adventures, which he himself 
has narrated, including a dangerous crossing of the Tagus, 
and a meeting with Dom Geronimo Joze d'Azveto, 
secretary to the government of Evora, Borrow arrived at 
his destination, having spent two nights on the road. 
During the journey he had been constantly mindful of his 
mission ; beside the embers of a bandit's fire he left a New 
Testament, and the huts that mark the spot where Dom 
Pedro and Dom Miguel met, he sweetened with some of 
" the precious little tracts." 

He had brought with him to Evora twenty Testaments 
and two Bibles, half of which he left with an enlightened 
shopkeeper, to whom he had a letter of introduction. The 
other half he subsequently bestowed upon Dom Geronimo, 
who proved to be a man of great earnestness, deeply 
conscious of his countrymen's ignorance of true Christianity. 
Each day during his stay at Evora, Borrow spent two 
hours beside the fountain where the cattle were watered, 
entering into conversation with all who approached, the 
result being that before he left the town, he had spoken to 
" about two hundred ... of the children of Portugal upon 
matters connected with their eternal welfare." Sometimes 
his hearers would ask for proofs of his statements that they 
were not Christians, being ignorant of Christ and his 
teaching, and that the Pope was Satan's prime minister. 
He invariably replied by calling attention to their own 
ignorance of the Scripture, for if the priests were in reality 
Christ's ministers, why had they kept from their flocks the 
words of their Master ? 

When not engaged at the fountain, Borrow rode about 
the neighbourhood distributing tracts. Fearful lest the 
people might refuse them if offered by his own hand, he 



158 THE MISSION TO PORTUGAL [1835 

dropped them in their favourite walks, in the hope that 
they would be picked up out of curiosity. He caused the 
daughter of the landlady of the inn at which he stopped to 
burn a copy of Volney's Ruins of Empire, because the 
author was an "emissary of Satan," the girl standing 
by telling her beads until the book were entirely 
consumed. 

Borrow had been greatly handicapped through the lack 
of letters of introduction to influential people in Portugal. 
He wrote, therefore, to Dr Bowring, now M.P. for Kilmar- 
nock, telling him of his wanderings among the rustics and 
banditti of Portugal, with whom he had become very 
popular ; but, he continues : 

" As it is much more easy to introduce oneself to the 
cottage than the hall (though I am not utterly unknown in 
the latter), I want you to give or procure me letters to the 
most liberal and influential minds in Portugal. I likewise 
want a letter from the Foreign Office to Lord [Howard] 
de Walden. In a word, I want to make what interest I 
can towards obtaining the admission of the Gospel of Jesus 
into the public schools of Portugal, which are about to be 
established. I beg leave to state that this is my plan and 
no other person's, as I was merely sent over to Portugal to 
observe the disposition of the people, therefore I do not 
wish to be named as an Agent of the B.S., but as a person 
who has plans for the mental improvement of the Portu- 
guese ; should I receive these letters within the space of 
six weeks it will be time enough, for before setting up my 
machine in Portugal, I wish to lay the foundations of 
something similar in Spain." 

P.S. — " I start for Spain to-morrow, and I want letters 
something similar (there is impudence for you) for Madrid, 
which I should like to have as soon as possible. I do not 
much care at present for an introduction to the Ambassador 
at Madrid, as I shall not commence operations seriously in 
Spain until I have disposed of Portugal. I will not 
apologise for writing to you in this manner, for you know 
me, but I will tell you one thing, which is, that the letter 
which you procured for me, on my going to St Petersburg, 
from Lord Palmerston, assisted me wonderfully ; I called 



x] WELCOMED AS A POWERFUL RABBI 159 

twice at your domicile on my return ; the first time you 
were in Scotland — the second in France, and I assure you 
I cried with vexation. Remember me to Mrs Bowring, 
and God bless you." x 

In this letter Borrow gives another illustration of his 
shrewdness. He saw clearly the disadvantage of appeal- 
ing for assistance as an agent of the Bible Society, a 
Protestant institution which was anathema in a Roman 
Catholic country, whereas if he posed merely as " a 
gentleman who has plans for the mental improvement of 
the Portuguese," he could enlist the sympathetic interest 
of any and every broad-minded Portuguese mindful of his 
country's intellectual gloom. In response to this request 
Dr Bowring, writing from Brussels, sent two letters of 
introduction, one each for Lisbon and Madrid. 

After remaining at Evora for a week (8th to 17th 
December) Borrow returned to Lisbon, thoroughly satisfied 
with the results of his journey. The next fortnight he 
spent in a further examination of Lisbon, and becoming 
acquainted with the Jews of the city, by whom he was 
welcomed as a powerful rabbi. He favoured the mistake, 
with the result that in a few days he " knew all that related 
to them and their traffic in Lisbon." 2 

Borrow's methods seem to have impressed Earl 
Street most favourably. In a letter of acknowledgment 
Mr Brandram wrote : — 

" We have been much interested by your two 
communications. 3 They are both very painful in their 
details, and you develop a truly awful state of things. 
You are probing the wound, and I hope preparing the 
way for our pouring in by and by the healing balsam of 
the Scripture. We shall be anxious to hear from you 
again. We often think of you in your wanderings. We 

1 Letter to Dr Bowring, 26th December 1835. 

2 The Bible in Spain, page 67. 

3 Dated 8th and 10th January 1836, giving an account of his 
journey to Evora. 



160 THE MISSION TO PORTUGAL [1835 

like your way of communicating with the people, meeting 
them in their own walks." 

Thoroughly convinced as to the irreligious state of 
Portugal, Borrow determined to set out for Spain, in 
order that he might examine into the condition of the 
people, and report to the Bible Society their state 
of preparedness to receive the Scriptures. On the 
afternoon of 1st January 1836 he set out, bound for 
Badajos, a hundred miles south of Lisbon. From Badajos 
he intended to take the diligence on to Madrid, which he 
decided to make his headquarters. 

Having taken leave of his servant Antonio (who had 
accompanied him as far as Aldea Gallega) almost with 
tears, Borrow mounted a hired mule, and with no other 
companion than an idiot lad, who, when spoken to, made 
reply only with an uncouth laugh, he plunged once more 
into the dangerous and desolate Alemtejo on a four days' 
journey " over the most savage and ill-noted track in the 
whole kingdom." At first he was overwhelmed with a 
sense of loneliness, and experienced a great desire for 
someone with whom to talk. There was no one to be 
seen — he was hemmed in by desolation and despair. 

At Montemor Novo Borrow appears in a new light 
when he kisses his hand repeatedly to the tittering nuns 
who, with " dusky faces and black waving hair," 1 strove 
to obtain a glance of the stranger who, a few minutes 
previously, had dared to tell one of their number that he 
had come " to endeavour to introduce the gospel of Christ 
into a country where it is not known." 2 

One adventure befel him that might have ended in 
tragedy. Soon after leaving Arrayolos he overtook a 
string of carts conveying ammunition into Spain. One of 
the Portuguese soldiers of the guard began to curse 
foreigners in general and Borrow, whom he mistook for a 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 78. 
- The Bible in Spain, pages 77-8. 



x] AN UNPLEASANT ADVENTURE 161 

Frenchmen, in particular, because " the devil helps 
foreigners and hates the Portuguese." When about forty 
yards ahead of the advance guard, with which the discon- 
tented soldier marched, Borrow had the imprudence to 
laugh, with the result that the next moment two well- 
aimed bullets sang past his ears. Taking the hint, Borrow 
put spurs to his mule, and, followed by the terrified guide, 
soon outdistanced these official banditti. With great 
naivete* he remarks, " Oh, may I live to see the day when 
soldiery will no longer be tolerated in any civilised, or at 
least Christian country ! " 1 

For two and a half days the idiot guide had met 
Borrow's most dexterous cross-examination with a deter- 
mined silence ; but on reaching a hill overlooking Estremoz 
he suddenly found tongue, and, in an epic of inspiration, 
told of the wonderful hunting that was to be obtained on 
the Serre Dorso, the Alemtejo's finest mountain. " He like- 
wise described with great minuteness a wonderful dog, 
which was kept in the neighbourhood for the purpose of 
catching the wolves and wild boars, and for which the 
proprietor had refused twenty moidores." 2 From this it 
would appear that the idiocy of the guide was an armour 
to be assumed at will by one who preferred the sweetness 
of his own thoughts to the cross-questionings of his master's 
clients. 

At Elvas, which he reached on 5th January, Borrow 
showed very strongly one rather paradoxical side of his 
character. Never backward in his dispraise of Englishmen 
and things English, in particular those responsible for the 
administration of the nation's affairs, past and present, he 
demonstrated very clearly, in his expressions of indignation 
at the Portuguese attitude towards England, that he 
reserved this right of criticism strictly to himself. At the 
inn where he stayed, he thoroughly discomfited a Portuguese 
officer who dared to criticise the English Government for its 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 87. 
' The Bible in Spain, page 88. 



162 THE MISSION TO PORTUGAL [1836 

attitude in connection with the Spanish civil war. When 
refused entrance to the fort, where he had gone in order 
to satisfy his curiosity, Borrow exclaims, " This is one of 
the beneficial results of protecting a nation, and squander- 
ing blood and treasure in its defence." 1 

Borrow was essentially an Englishman and proud of 
his blood, prouder perhaps of that which came to him from 
Norfolk, 2 and although permitting himself and his fellow- 
countrymen considerable license in the matter of caustic 
criticism of public men and things, there the matter must 
end. Let a foreigner, a Portuguese, dare to say a word 
against his, Borrow's, country, and he became subjected to 
either a biting cross-examination, or was denounced in 
eloquent and telling periods. " I could not command 
myself," he writes in extenuation of his unchristian conduct 
in discomfiting the officer at Elvas, " when I heard my own 
glorious land traduced in this unmerited manner. By 
whom ? A Portuguese ? A native of a country which has 
been twice liberated from horrid and detestable thraldom 
by the hands of Englishmen." 3 

On 6th January 1836,* having sent back the "idiot" 
guide with the two mules, Borrow " spurred down the hill 
of Elvas to the plain, eager to arrive in old, chivalrous, 
romantic Spain," and having forded the stream that 
separates the two countries, he crossed the bridge over the 
Guadiana and entered the North Gate of Badajos, 
immortalised by Wellington and the British Army. He 
had reached Spain " in the humble hope of being able to 
cleanse some of the foul stains of Popery from the minds of 
its children." 5 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 99. 2 Lavengro, page 191. 

3 The Bible in Spain, pages 97-8. 

4 Not 5th Jan., as given in The Bible in Spain, 

5 The Bible in Spain, page 103. 



CHAPTER XI 

JANUARY — OCTOBER 1 836 

WHEN Borrow entered Spain she was in the throes 
of civil war. In 1814 British blood and British 
money had restored to the throne Ferdinand VII., who, 
immediately he found himself secure, and forgetting his 
pledges to govern constitutionally, dissolved the Cortes and 
became an absolute monarch. All the old abuses were 
revived, including the re-establishment of the Inquisition. 
For six years the people suffered their King's tyranny, 
then they revolted, with the result that Ferdinand, bending 
to the wind, accepted a re-imposition of the Constitution. 
In 1823 a French Army occupied Madrid in support of 
Ferdinand, who promptly reverted to absolutism. 

In 1829 Ferdinand married for the fourth time, and, 
on the birth of a daughter, declared that the Salic law 
had no effect in Spain, and the young princess was 
recognised as heir-apparent to the throne. This drew 
from his brother, Don Carlos, who immediately left the 
country, a protest against his exclusion from the succession. 
When his daughter was four years of age, Ferdinand died, 
and the child was proclaimed Queen as Isabel II. 

A bitter war broke out between the respective adherents 
of the Queen and her uncle Don Carlos. Prisoners and 
wounded were massacred without discrimination, and an 
uncivilised and barbarous warfare waged when Borrow 
crossed the Portuguese frontier " to undertake the 
adventure of Spain." 

163 



164 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

Spain had always appealed most strongly to Borrow's 
imagination. 

" In the day-dreams of my boyhood," he writes, " Spain 
always bore a considerable share, and I took a particular 
interest in her, without any presentiment that I should, at 
a future time, be called upon to take a part, however 
humble, in her strange dramas ; which interest, at a very- 
early period, led me to acquire her noble language, and to 
make myself acquainted with the literature (scarcely 
worthy of the language), her history and traditions ; so 
that when I entered Spain for the first time I felt more at 
home than I should otherwise have done." 1 

Whilst standing at the door of the Inn of the Three 
Nations on the day following his arrival at Badajos, 
meditating upon the deplorable state of the country he had 
just entered, Borrow recognised in the face of one of two 
men who were about to pass him the unmistakable linea- 
ments of Egypt. Uttering " a certain word," he received the 
reply he expected and forthwith engaged in conversation 
with the two men, who both proved to be gypsies. These 
men spread the news abroad that staying at the Inn of the 
Three Nations was a man who spoke Romany. " In less 
than half an hour the street before the inn was filled with 
the men, women, and children of Egypt." Borrow went out 
amongst them, and confesses that " so much vileness, dirt, 
and misery I had never seen among a similar number of 
human beings ; but worst of all was the evil expression of 
their countenances." 2 He soon discovered that their faces 
were an accurate index to their hearts, which were capable 
of every species of villainy. The gypsies clustered round 
him, fingering his hands, face and clothes, as if he were a 
holy man. 

Gypsies had always held for Borrow a strange attrac- 
tion, 3 and he determined to prolong his stay at Badajos in 

1 The Bible in Spain, Preface, page vi. 
■' The Gypsies of Spain, page 179. 

3 " Throughout my life the Gypsy race has always had a peculiar 
interest for me. Indeed I can remember no period when the mere 



XL] "A FILTHY, UNCIVILISED SET" 165 

order that he might have an opportunity of becoming 
" better acquainted with their condition and manners, and 
above all to speak to them of Christ and His Word ; for I 
was convinced, that should I travel to the end of the 
universe, I should meet with no people more in need of a 
little Christian exhortation." 1 

Intimate though his acquaintance with the gypsies of 
other countries had been, Borrow was aghast at the 
depravity of those of Spain. The men were drunkards, 
brigands, and murderers ; the women unchaste, and inveter- 
ate thieves. Their language was terrifying in its foulness. 
They seemed to have no religion save a misty glimmering 
of metempsychosis, which had come down to them through 
the centuries, and having been very wicked in this world 
they asked, with some show of reason, why they should 
live again. They were incorrigible heathens, keenly 
interested in the demonstration that their language was 
capable of being written and read, but untouched by the 
parables of Lazarus or the Prodigal Son, which Borrow 
read and expounded to them. " Brother," exclaimed one 
woman, " you tell us strange things, though perhaps you do 
not lie ; a month since I would sooner have believed these 
tales, than that this day I should see one who could read 
Romany." 2 

Neither by exhortation nor by translating into Romany 
a portion of the Gospel of St Luke could Borrow make 
any impression upon the minds of the gypsies, therefore 
when one of them, Antonio by name, announced that " the 
affairs of Egypt " called for his presence " on the frontiers 
of Costumbra," and that he and Borrow might as well 
journey thus far together, he decided to avail himself of 
the opportunity. It was arranged that Borrow's luggage 

mention of the name Gypsy did not awaken within me feelings hard 
to be described. I cannot account for this — I merely state it as a 
fact." — The Gypsies of Spain, page i. 

1 The Gypsies of Spain, pages 184-5. 

2 The Gypsies of Spain, page 186. 



166 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

should be sent on ahead, for, as Antonio said, " How the 
Busne [the Spaniards] on the road would laugh if they saw 
two Cales [Gypsies] with luggage behind them." 1 Thus it 
came about that an agent of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, mounted upon a most uncouth horse " of a 
spectral white, short in the body, but with remarkably long 
legs " and high in the withers, set out from Badajos on 
1 6th January 1836, escorted by a smuggler astride a mule ; 
for the affairs of Egypt on this occasion were the evasion 
of the Customs dues. 

Towards evening on the first day the curiously assorted 
pair arrived at Merida, and proceeded to a large and 
ruinous house, a portion of which was occupied by some 
connections of the gypsy Antonio's. In the large hall of 
the old mansion they camped, and here, acting on the 
gypsy's advice, Borrow remained for three days. Antonio 
himself was absent from early morning until late at night, 
occupied with his own affairs. 2 

The fourth night was spent in the forest by the camp- 
fire of some more of Antonio's friends. On one occasion, 
but for the fortunate possession of a passport, the affairs 
of Egypt would have involved Borrow in some diffi- 
culties with the authorities. At another time, for safety's 
sake, he had to part from Antonio and proceed on his 
way alone, picking up the contrabandista further on the 
road. 

When some distance beyond Jaraicejo, it was dis- 
covered that the affairs of Egypt had ended disastrously 
in the discomfiture and capture of Antonio's friends by the 
authorities. The news was brought by the gypsy's 
daughter. Antonio must return at once, and as the steed 
Borrow was riding, which belonged to Antonio, would be 
required by him, Borrow purchased the daughter's donkey, 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 109. 

' 2 Dr Knapp states that the wedding described in The Gypsies of 
Spain took place during these three days. — Life of George Borro7u, 
by Dr Knapp, i., page 242. 



XL] ARRIVAL AT MADRID 167 

and having said good-bye to the smuggler, he continued 
his journey alone. 

By way of Almaraz and Oropesa Borrow eventually 
reached Talavera (24th Jan.). On the advice of a Toledo 
Jew, with whom he had become acquainted during the 
last stage of his journey, he decided to take the diligence 
from Talavera to Madrid, the more willingly because the 
Jew amiably offered to purchase the donkey. On the 
evening of 25 th Jan. Borrow accordingly took his place on 
the diligence, and reached the capital the next morning. 

On arriving at Madrid, Borrow first went to a Posada ; 
but a few days later he removed to lodgings in the Calle 
de la Zarza (the Street of the Brambles), — " A dark and 
dirty street, which, however, was close to the Puerta del 
Sol, the most central point of Madrid, into which four or 
five of the principal streets debouche, and which is, at 
all times of the year, the great place of assemblage for 
the idlers of the capital, poor or rich." 1 

The capital did not at first impress Borrow very favour- 
ably.'- 2 " Madrid is a small town," he wrote to his mother, 3 
" not larger than Norwich, but it is crammed with people, 
like a hive with bees, and it contains many fine streets 
and fountains. . . . Everything in Madrid is excessively 
dear to foreigners, for they are made to pay six times 
more than natives. ... I manage to get on tolerably 
well, for I make a point of paying just one quarter of 
what I am asked." 

He suffered considerably from the frost and cold. 
From the snow-covered mountains that surround the city 
there descend in winter such cold blasts " that the body 
is drawn up like a leaf." 4 Then again there were the 
physical discomforts that he had to endure. 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 162. 

2 " I am not partial to Madrid, its climate, or anything it can 
offer, if I except its unequalled gallery of pictures." — Letter to Rev. 
A. Brandram, 22nd March 1836. :5 24th February 1836. 

4 Letter to his mother, 24th February 1S36. 



168 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

"You cannot think," he wrote, 1 "what a filthy, un- 
civilised set of people the Spanish and Portuguese are. 
There is more comfort in an English barn than in one 
of their palaces ; and they are rude and ill-bred to a 
surprising degree." 

Borrow was angry with Spain, possibly for being so 
unlike his " dear and glorious Russia." He saw in it 
a fertile and beautiful country, inhabited by a set of 
beings that were not human, " almost as bad as the 
Irish, with the exception that they are not drunkards." 2 
They were a nation of thieves and extortioners, who 
regarded the foreigner as their legitimate prey. Even 
his own servant was " the greatest thief and villain that 
ever existed ; who, if I would let him, would steal the 
teeth out of my head," 3 and who seems actually to have 
destroyed some of his master's letters for the sake of 
the postage. Being forced to call upon various people 
whose addresses he did not know, Borrow found it 
necessary to keep the man, in spite of his thievish 
proclivities, for he was clever, and had he been dismissed 
his place would, in all probability, have been taken by 
an even greater rogue. 

At night he never went out, for the streets were 
thronged with hundreds of people of the rival factions, 
bent on "cutting and murdering one another; ... for 
every Spaniard is by nature a cruel, cowardly tiger. 
Nothing is more common than to destroy a whole town, 
putting man, woman, and child to death, because two 
or three of the inhabitants have been obnoxious." 4 Thus 
he wrote to his mother, all-unconscious of the anxiety 
and alarm that he was causing her lest he, her dear 
George, should be one of the cut or murdered. 

Later, Borrow seems to have revised his opinion of 
Madrid and of its inhabitants. He confesses that of all 
the cities he has known Madrid interested him the most, 

1 Letter to his mother, 24th February 1836 ' L Ibid. 

a Ibid. ' Ibid. 



xi.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS 169 

not on account ofits public buildings, squares or fountains, 
for these are surpassed in other cities ; but because of 
its population. " Within a mud wall scarcely one league 
and a half in circuit, are contained two hundred thousand 
human beings, certainly forming the most extraordinary 
vital mass to be found in the entire world." 1 In the 
upper classes he had little interest. He mixed but little 
with them, and what he saw did not impress him favour- 
ably. It was the Spaniard of the lower orders that 
attracted him. He regarded this class as composed not 
of common beings, but of extraordinary men. He 
admired their spirit of proud independence, and forgave 
them their ignorance. His first impressions of Spain had 
been unfavourable because, as a stranger, he had been 
victimised by the amiable citizens, who were merely doing 
as their fathers had done before them. Once, however, 
he got to know them, he regarded with more indulgence 
their constitutional dishonesty towards the stranger, a 
weakness they possessed in common with the gypsies, 
and hailed them as " extraordinary men." Borrow's 
impulsiveness frequently led him to ill-considered and 
hasty conclusions, which, however, he never hesitated to 
correct, if he saw need for correction. 

The disappointment he experienced as regards Madrid 
and the Spaniards is not difficult to understand. He 
arrived quite friendless and without letters of introduction, 
to find the city given over to the dissensions and strifes 
of the supporters of Isabel II. and Don Carlos. His 
journey had been undertaken in " the hope of obtaining 
permission from the Government to print the New Testa- 
ment in the Castilian language, without the notes insisted 
on by the Spanish clergy, for circulation in Spain," and 
there seemed small chance of those responsible for the 
direction of affairs listening to the application of a foreigner 
for permission to print the unannotated Scriptures. For 
one thing, any acquiescence in such a suggestion would 
1 The Bible in Spain, page 1 73. 



170 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

draw forth from the priesthood bitter reproaches and, 
most probably, active and serious opposition. It is only 
natural that despondency should occasionally seize upon 
him who sought to light the lamp of truth amidst such 
tempests. 

The man to approach was the premier, Juan Alvarez 
y Mendizabal, 1 a Christianised Jew. He was enormously 
powerful, and Borrow decided to appeal to him direct ; for, 
armed with the approval of Mendizabal, no one would 
dare to interfere with his plans or proceedings. Borrow 
made several attempts to see Mendizabal, who " was 
considered as a man of almost unbounded power, in whose 
hands were placed the destinies of the country." Without 
interest or letters of introduction, he found it utterly 
impossible to obtain an audience. Recollecting the 
assistance he had received from the Hon. J. D. Bligh at St 
Petersburg, Borrow determined to make himself known to 
the British Minister at Madrid, the Hon. George Villiers,' 2 
and, " with the freedom permitted to a British subject . . . 
ask his advice in the affair." Borrow was received with 
great kindness, and, after conversing upon various topics 
for some time, he introduced the subject of his visit. Mr 
Villiers willingly undertook to help him as far as lay in his 
power, and promised to endeavour to procure for him an 
audience with the Premier. In this he was successful, and 

1 Born 1790, commissariat contractor in 1808 during the French 
invasion, he was of great assistance to his country. In 1823 he fled 
from the despotism of Ferdinand VII. ; he returned twelve years later 
as Minister of Finance under Toreno. He resigned in 1837, was 
again in power in 1841, and died in 1853. 

2 George William Villiers, afterwards 4th Earl of Clarendon, 
born 12th Jan. 1800; created G.C.B., 19th Oct. 1837 ; succeeded his 
uncle as Earl of Clarendon, 1838 ; K.G., 1849. He twice refused a 
Marquisate, also the Governor-generalship of India. He refused 
the Order of the Black Eagle (Prussia) and the Legion of Honour. 
Lord Privy Seal, 1839-41 ; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 
1840-1, 1864-5 ; Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 1847-52. Secretary of 
State for Foreign Affairs, 1853-8, 1865-6, 1868-9. Died 27th June 
1870. 




GEORGE VILLIERS, FOURTH EARL OF CLARENDON 

(British Minister at Madrid, 1833-1839). 

(From the engraving after Sir Francis Gram in the National Portrait Gallery.) 



I To fact page 170- 



xi] INTERVIEW WITH MENDIZABAL 171 

Borrow had an interview with Mendizabal, who was almost 
inaccessible to all but the few. 

At eight o'clock on the morning of 7th February 
Borrow presented himself at the palace, where Mendizabal 
resided, and after waiting for about three hours, was 
admitted to the presence of the Prime Minister of Spain, 
whom he found — " A huge athletic man, somewhat taller 
than myself, who measure six foot two without my shoes. 
His complexion was florid, his features fine and regular, 
his nose quite aquiline, and his teeth splendidly white ; 
though scarcely fifty years of age, his hair was remark- 
ably grey. He was dressed in a rich morning gown, 
with a gold chain round his neck, and morocco slippers on 
his feet." * 

Borrow began by assuring Mendizabal that he was 
labouring under a grave error in thinking that the Bible 
Society had sought to influence unduly the slaves of Cuba, 
that they had not sent any agents there, and they were 
not in communication with any of the residents. Mr 
Villiers had warned Borrow that the premier was very 
angry on account of reports that had reached him of the 
action in Cuba of certain people whom he insisted were 
sent there by the Bible Society. In vain Borrow suggested 
that the disturbers of the tranquillity of Spain's beneficent 
rule in the Island were in no way connected with Earl 
Street ; he was several times interrupted by Mendizabal, 
who insisted that he had documentary proof. Borrow with 
difficulty restrained himself from laughing in the premier's 
face. He pointed out that the Committee was composed 
of quiet, respectable English gentlemen, who attended to 
their own concerns and gave a little of their time to the 
affairs of the Bible Society. 

On Borrow asking for permission to print at Madrid 

the New Testament in Spanish without notes, he was met 

with an unequivocal refusal. In spite of his arguments 

that the whole tenor of the work was against bloodshedding 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 165. 



172 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

and violence, he could not shake the premier's opinion 
that it was " an improper book." 

At first Borrow had experienced some difficulty in 
explaining himself, on account of the Spaniard's habit of 
persistent interruption, and at last he was forced in self- 
defence to hold on in spite of Mendizabal's remarks. The 
upshot of the interview was that he was told to renew his 
application when the Carlists had been beaten and the 
country was at peace. Borrow then asked permission to 
introduce into Spain a few copies of the New Testament 
in the Catalan dialect, but was refused. He next requested 
to be allowed to call on the following day and submit a 
copy of the Catalan edition, and received the remarkable 
reply that the prime-minister refused his offer to call lest 
he should succeed in convincing him, and Mendizabal 
did not wish to be convinced. This seemed to show 
that the Mendizabal was something of a philosopher and a 
little of a humorist. 

With this Borrow had to be content, and after an 
hour's interview he withdrew. The premier was unques- 
tionably in a difficult position. On the one hand, he no 
doubt desired to assist a man introduced to him by the 
representative of Great Britain, to whom he looked for 
assistance in suppressing Carlism ; on the other hand, he 
had the priesthood to consider, and they would without 
question use every means of which they stood possessed 
to preserve the prohibition against the dissemination of the 
Scriptures, without notes, a prohibition that had become 
almost a tradition. 

But Borrow was not discouraged. He wrote in a most 
hopeful strain that he foresaw the speedy and successful 
termination of the Society's negotiations in the Peninsula. 
He looked forward to the time when only an agent would 
be required to superintend the engagement of colporteurs, 
and to make arrangements with the booksellers. He 
proceeds to express a hope that his exertions have given 
satisfaction to the Society. 



XL] THE ARTICLE IN EL ESPANOL 173 

Borrow received an encouraging letter from Mr 
Brandram, telling him of the Committee's appreciation 
of his work, but practically leaving with him the decision 
as to his future movements. They were inclined to favour 
a return to Lisbon, but recognised that " in these wondrous 
days opportunities may open unexpectedly." In the 
matter of the Gospel of St Luke in Spanish Romany, 
the publication of extracts was authorised, but there was 
no enthusiasm for the project. " We say," wrote Mr 
Brandram, "festina lente. You will be doing well to 
occupy leisure hours with this work ; but we are not 
prepared for printing anything beyond portions at 
present." 

In the meantime, however, an article in the Madrid 
newspaper, El Espafiol, upon the history, aims, and 
achievements of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
had determined Borrow to remain on at Madrid for a 
few weeks at least. 

" Why should Spain, which has explored the New World, 
. . . why should she alone be destitute of Bible Societies," 
asked the Espailol. " Why should a nation eminently 
Catholic continue isolated from the rest of Europe, 
without joining in the magnificent enterprise in which 
the latter is so busily engaged ? " x 

This article fired Borrow, and with the promise of 
assistance from the liberal-minded Espafiol, he set to 
work " to lay the foundation of a Bible Society at 
Madrid." 2 As a potential head of the Spanish organiza- 
tion, Borrow's eyes were already directed towards the 
person of " a certain Bishop, advanced in years, a person of 
great piety and learning, who has himself translated the 
New Testament" 3 and who was disposed to print and 
circulate it. 

1 Extracts accompanying letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 22nd 
March 1836. 

2 Ibid, 3 IMd% 



174 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

Nothing, however, came of the project. Mr Brandram 
wrote to Borrow : — " With regard to forming a Bible 
Society in Madrid, and appointing Dr Usoz Secretary, it 
is so out of our usual course that the Committee, for 
various reasons, cannot comply with your wishes — of the 
desirableness of forming such a Society at present, you 
and your friend must be the best judges. If it is to be 
an independent society, as I suppose must be the case," 
Mr Brandram continues, and the Bible Society's aid or 
that of its agent is sought, the new Society must be 
formed on the principles of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, admitting, "on the one hand, general co- 
operation, and on the other, that it does not circulate 
Apocryphal Bibles." There was doubt at Earl Street as 
to whether the time was yet ripe ; so the decision was very 
properly left with Borrow, and he was told that he " need 
not fear to hold out great hopes of encouragement in the 
event of the formation of such a Society." l 

A serious difficulty now arose in the resignation of 
Mendizabal (March 1836). Two of his friends and 
supporters, in the persons of FVancisco de Isturitz and 
Alcala Galiano, seceded from his party, and, under the 
name of moderados, formed an opposition to their Chief 
in the Cortes. They had the support of the Queen 
Regent and General Cordova, whom Mendizabal had 
wished to remove from his position as head of the army 
on account of his great popularity with the soldiers, whose 
comforts and interests he studied. Isturitz became Premier, 
Galiano Minister of Marine (a mere paper title, as there 
was no navy at the time), and the Duke of Rivas Minister 
of the Interior. 

Conscious of the advantage of possessing powerful 
friends, especially in a country such as Spain, Borrow had 
used every endeavour to enlarge the circle of his acquaint- 
ance among men occupying influential positions, or likely 
to succeed those who at present filled them. The result was 
1 Letter of 22nd March 1837. 



xi] "A NEW AND WONDERFUL THING" 175 

that he was able to announce to Mr Brandram that the 
new ministry, which had been formed, was composed 
" entirely of my friends." l With Galiano in particular he 
was on very intimate terms. Everything promised well, 
and the new Cabinet showed itself most friendly to Borrow 
and his projects, until the actual moment arrived for 
writing the permission to print the Scriptures in Spanish. 
Then doubts arose, and the decrees of the Council of Trent 
loomed up, a threatening barrier, in the eyes of the Duke 
of Rivas and his secretary. 

So hopeful was Borrow after his first interview with 
the Duke that he wrote : — " I shall receive the permission, 
the Lord willing, in a few days. . . . The last skirts of 
the cloud of papal superstition are vanishing below the 
horizon of Spain ; whoever says the contrary either knows 
nothing of the matter or wilfully hides the truth." 2 

At Earl Street the good news about the article in the 
Espaiiol gave the liveliest satisfaction. " Surely a new and 
wonderful thing in Spain," wrote Mr Brandram 3 in a 
letter in which he urged Borrow to " guard against 
becoming too much committed to one political 
party," and asked him to write more frequently, as his 
letters were always most welcome. This letter reached 
Madrid at a time when Borrow found himself absolutely 
destitute. 

" For the last three weeks," he writes, 4 " I have been 
without money, literally without a farthing." Everything 
in Madrid was so dear. A month previously he had been 
forced to pay £\2, 5s. for a suit of clothes, "my own 
being so worn that it was impossible to appear longer in 
public with them." 5 He had written to Mr Wilby, but in 
all probability his letter had gone astray, the post to 
Estremadura having been three times robbed. " The 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 22nd May 1836. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 22nd May 1836. 

3 Letter dated 6th April 1836. 

4 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 20th April 1836. 5 Ibid. 



176 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1830 

money may still come," he continues, 1 " but I have given 
up all hopes of it, and I am compelled to write home, 
though what I am to do till I can receive your answer 
I am at a loss to conceive . . . whatever I undergo, 
I shall tell nobody of my situation, it might hurt the 
Society and our projects here. I know enough of the 
world to be aware that it is considered as the worst of 
crimes to be without money." 2 

For weeks Borrow devoted himself to the task of 
endeavouring to obtain permission to print the Scriptures 
in Spanish. The Duke of Rivas referred him to his secretary, 
saying, " He will do for you what you want ! " But the 
secretary retreated behind the decrees of the Council of 
Trent. Then Mr Villiers intervened, saw the Duke and 
gave Borrow a letter to him. Again the Council of Trent 
proved to be the obstacle. Galiano took up the matter 
and escorted Borrow to the Bureau of the Interior, and 
had an interview with the Duke's secretary. When 
Galiano left, there remained nothing for the conscientious 
secretary to do but to write out the formal permission, all 
else having been satisfactorily settled ; but no sooner had 
Galiano departed, than the recollection of the Council of 
Trent returned to the secretary with terrifying distinctness, 
and no permission was given. 

Tired of the Council of Trent and the Duke's secretary, 
Borrow would sometimes retire to the banks of the canal 
and there loiter in the sun, watching the gold and silver 
fish basking on the surface of its waters, or gossiping with 
the man who sold oranges and water under the shade of 
the old water-tower. Once he went to see an execution — 
anything to drive from his mind the conscientious secre- 
tary and the Council of Trent, the sole obstacles to the 
realisation of his plans. 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 20th April 1836. 

2 Ibid. Borrows destitution was entirely accidental, and immedi- 
ately that his letter was received at Earl Street the sum of twenty- 
five pounds was forwarded to him. 



xi.] "THE FALL OF " 177 

Borrow informed Mr Brandram at the end of May that 
the Cabinet was unanimously in favour of granting his 
request ; nothing happened. There seems no doubt that 
the Cabinet's policy was one of subterfuge. It could not 
afford to offend the British Minister, nor could it, at that 
juncture, risk the bitter hostility of the clergy, consequently 
it promised and deferred. A petition to the Ecclesiastical 
Committee of Censors, although strongly backed by the 
Civil Governor of Madrid (within whose department lay 
the censorship), produced no better result. There was 
nothing heard but " To-morrow, please God ! " 

Foiled for the time being in his constructive policy, 
Borrow turned his attention to one of destruction. He 
had already announced to the Bible Society that the 
authority of the Pope was in a precarious condition. 

" Little more than a breath is required to destroy it," 
he writes, 1 "and I am almost confident that in less than a 
year it will be disowned. I am doing whatever I can in 
Madrid to prepare the way for an event so desirable. I 
mix with the people, and inform them who and what the 
Pope is, and how disastrous to Spain his influence has 
been. I tell them that the indulgences, which they are in 
the habit of purchasing, are of no more intrinsic value than 
so many pieces of paper, and were merely invented with 
the view of plundering them. I frequently ask : 'Is it 
possible that God, who is good, would sanction the sale of 
sin? and, supposing certain things are sinful, do you think 
that God, for the sake of your money, would permit you to 
perform them ? ' In many instances my hearers have been 
satisfied with this simple reasoning, and have said that 
they would buy no more indulgences." 

Mr Brandram promptly wrote warning Borrow against 
becoming involved in any endeavour to hasten the fall of 
the Pope. Although deeply interested in what their agent 
had to say, there was a strong misgiving at headquarters 
that for a few moments Borrow had " forgotten that our 
hopes of the fall of are founded on the simple 

1 Letter to Kev. A. Brandram, 20th April 1836. 

M 



178 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

distribution of the Scriptures," x and he was told that, as 
their agent, he must not pursue the course that he described. 
The warning was carefully worded, so that it might not 
wound Borrow's feelings or lessen his enthusiasm. 

Borrow had found that the climate of Madrid did not 
agree with him. It had proved very trying during the 
winter ; but now that summer had arrived the heat was 
suffocating and the air seemed to be filled with " flaming 
vapours," and even the Spaniards would " lie gasping and 
naked upon their brick floors." 2 In spite of the heat, how- 
ever, he was occupied " upon an average ten hours every day, 
dancing attendance on one or another of the Ministers." 3 

Sometimes the difficulties that he had to contend with 
reduced him almost to despair of ever obtaining the 
permission he sought. " Only those," he writes, 4 " who 
have been in the habit of dealing with Spaniards, by 
whom the most solemn promises are habitually broken, 
can form a correct idea of my reiterated disappointments, 
and of the toil of body and agony of spirit which I have 
been subjected to. One day I have been told, at the 
Ministry, that I had only to wait a few moments and all I 
wished would be acceded to ; and then my hopes have been 
blasted with the information that various difficulties, which 
seemed insurmountable, had presented themselves, where- 
upon I have departed almost broken-hearted ; but the 
next day I have been summoned in a great hurry and 
informed that ' all was right,' and that on the morrow a 
regular authority to print the Scriptures would be delivered 
to me, but by that time fresh and yet more terrible diffi- 
culties had occurred — so that I became weary of my life." 

Mr Villiers evidently saw through the Spanish Cabinet's 
policy of delay ; for he spoke to the ministers collectively 
and individually, strongly recommending that the petition 
be granted. He further pointed out the terrible condition of 

1 Letter of 9th May 1836. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th June 1836. 

3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 



xi.] BRITISH MINISTER INTERVENES 179 

the people, who lacked religious instruction of any kind, 
and that a nation of atheists would not prove very easy to 
govern. It may have been these arguments, or, what is 
more likely, a desire on the part of the Cabinet to please the 
representative of Great Britain, in any case a greater 
willingness was now shown to give the necessary per- 
mission. Measures were accordingly taken to evade the 
law and protect the printer into whose hands the work 
was to be entrusted, until an appropriate moment arrived 
for repealing the existing statute. 

Borrow forwarded to Earl Street the following interest- 
ing letter that he had received from Mr Villiers, which 
confirms his words as to the keen interest taken by the 
British Minister in the endeavour to obtain the permission 
to print the New Testament in Spanish : — 

Dear Sir, 

I have had a long conversation with Mr Isturitz 
upon the subject of printing the Testament, in which he 
showed himself to be both sagacious and liberal. He 
assured me that the matter should have his support 
whenever the Duque de Ribas brought it before the 
Cabinet, and that as far as he was concerned the question 
might be considered as settled. 

You are quite welcome to make any use you please 
of this note with the D. de Ribas or Mr Olivan. 1 
I am, Dear Sir, 

Yours faithfully, 

George Villiers. 
June 2$rd [1836]. 

It was unquestionably Borrow's personality that was 
responsible for Mr Villiers' interest in the scheme, as when 
Lieutenant Graydon' 2 had applied to him on a previous 
occasion he declined to interfere. 

1 The Duke's secretary who had shown so profound a respect for 
the decrees of the Council of Trent. 

J Late of the Royal Navy, who for sheer love of the work dis- 
tributed the Scriptures in Spain, and who later was to come into 
grave conflict with Borrow. 



180 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

At Borrow's suggestion the President of the Bible 
Society, Lord Bentley, wrote to Mr Villiers thanking him 
for the services he had rendered in connection with the 
Spanish programme. It was characteristic of Borrow that 
he added to his letter as a reason for his request, that " I 
may be again in need of Mr Vs. assistance before I leave 
Spain." 1 Borrow was always keenly alive to the 
advantage of possessing influential friends who would be 
likely to assist him in his labours for the Society. He was 
not a profound admirer of the Society of Jesus for nothing, 
and although he would scorn to exercise tact in regard to 
his own concerns, he was fully prepared to make use of it 
in connection with those of the Bible Society. He was a 
Jesuit at heart, and would in all probability have preferred 
a good compositor who had been guilty of sacrilege to a 
bad one who had not. He saw that besides being some- 
thing of a diplomatist, an agent of the Bible Society had 
also to be a good business man. He has been called tact- 
less, until the word seems to have become permanently 
identified with his name ; how unjustly is shown by a very 
hasty examination of his masterly diplomacy, both in 
Russia and Spain. Diplomacy, as Borrow understood it, 
was the art of being persuasive when persuasion would 
obtain for him his object, and firm, even threatening, when 
strong measures were best calculated to suit his ends. It 
is only the fool who defines tact as the gentle art of 
pleasing everybody. Diplomacy is the art of getting what 
you want at the expense of displeasing as few people as 
possible. 

" The affair is settled — thank God ! ! ! and we may begin 
to print whenever we think proper." With these words 
Borrow announces the success of his enterprise. " Perhaps 
you have thought," he continues, " that I have been tardy 
in accomplishing the business which brought me to Spain ; 
but to be able to form a correct judgment you ought to be 
aware of all the difficulties which I have had to encounter, 
1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th June 1836. 



xi.] THE TASK ACCOMPLISHED 181 

and which I shall not enumerate. I shall content myself 
with observing that for a thousand pounds I would not 
undergo again all the mortifications and disappointments 
of the last two months." x 

There were moments when Borrow forgot the idiom of 
Earl Street and reverted to his old, self-confident style, 
which had so alarmed some of the excellent members of 
the Committee. He had achieved a great triumph, how 
great is best shown by the suggestion made by the prime 
minister that if determined to avail himself of the permis- 
sion that had been obtained, he had better employ "the 
confidential printer of the Government, who would keep 
the matter secret ; as in the present state of affairs he [the 
prime minister] would not answer for the consequences if 
it were noised abroad." 2 By giving the license to print 
the New Testament without notes, the Cabinet was 
assuming a very grave responsibility. All this shows how 
great was the influence of the British Minister upon the 
Isturitz Cabinet, and how considerable that of Borrow upon 
the British Minister. 

Now that his object was gained, there was nothing 
further to keep Borrow in Spain, and he accordingly asked 
for instructions, suggesting that, as soon as the heats were 
over, Lieutenant Graydon might return to Madrid and 
take charge, " as nothing very difficult remains to be 
accomplished, and I am sure that Mr Villiers, at my 
entreaty, would extend to him the patronage with which 
he has honoured me." 3 In conclusion he announced him- 
self as ready to do " whatever the Bible Society may deem 
expedient." 4 

Borrow now began to suffer from the reaction after 
his great exertions. He became so languid as scarcely 
to be able to hold a pen. He had no books, and conversa- 
tion was impossible, for the heat had driven away all 
who could possibly escape, among them his acquaint- 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 7th July 1836. 

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 



182 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

ances, and he frequently remembered with a sigh the 
happy days spent in St Petersburg. 

A few days later (25th July) he wrote proposing as 
a member of the Bible Society Dr Luis de Usoz y Rio, 
" a person of great respectability and great learning." l 
Dr Usoz, who was subsequently to be closely associated 
with Borrow in his labours in Spain, was a man of 
whom he was unable to " speak in too high terms of 
admiration ; he is one of the most learned men in Spain, 
and is become in every point a Christian according to the 
standard of the New Testament." 2 

Dr Usoz also addressed a letter to the Society asking 
to be considered as a correspondent and entrusted with 
copies of the Scriptures, which he was convinced he could 
circulate in every province of Spain. The advantage 
of having one of the editors of the principal newspaper 
of Spain on the side of the Society did not fail to appeal 
to Borrow. Dr Usoz not only became a member of the 
Bible Society, but earned from Borrow a splendid tribute 
in the Preface to The Bible in Spam. 

Before advantage could be taken of the hardly earned 
permission to print the New Testament in Madrid, the 
Revolution of La Granja 3 broke out, resulting in the 
proclamation of the Constitution of 18 12, by which the 
press became free. In Madrid chaos reigned as a result. 
Borrow himself has given a vivid account of how Ouesada, 

1 Dr Usoz was a Spaniard of noble birth, a pupil of Mezzofanti, 
and one of the editors of El Espanol. He occupied the chair of 
Hebrew at Valladolid. He was deeply interested in the work of 
the Bible Society, and was fully convinced that in nothing but the 
reading of the Bible could the liberty in Spain be found. 

- Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th December 1837. 

3 La Granja was a royal palace some miles out of Madrid, to 
which the Queen Regent had withdrawn. On the night of 12th 
August, two sergeants had forced their way into the Queen 
Regent's presence, and successfully demanded that she should restore 
the Constitution of 18 12. This incident was called the Revolution 
of La Granja. 



XL] REVOLUTION 183 

by his magnificent courage, quelled for the time being 
the revolution, how the ministers fled, how eventually 
the heroic tyrant was recognised and killed, and, finally, 
how, at a celebrated coffee-house in Madrid, Borrow saw 
the victorious Nationals drink to the Constitution from 
a bowl of coffee, which had first been stirred with one of 
the mutilated hands of the hated Quesada. 1 

Now that no obstacle stood in the way of the printing 
of the Spanish New Testament, Borrow was requested to 
return to England that he might confer with the authorities 
at Earl Street. " You may now consider yourself under 
marching orders to return home as soon as you have made 
all the requisite arrangements ; . . . you have done, we are 
persuaded, a good and great work," 2 Mr Brandram wrote. 
It was thought by the Committee that the advantages to 
be derived from a conference with Borrow would be well 
worth the expense involved in his having to return again 
to Spain. 

•To this request for his immediate presence in London 
Borrow replied : 

" I shall make the provisional engagement as desired 
[as regards the printing of the New Testament] and shall 
leave Madrid as soon as possible ; but I must here inform 
you, that I shall find much difficulty in returning to 
England, as all the provinces are disturbed in consequence 
of the Constitution of 1812 having been proclaimed, and the 
roads are swarming with robbers and banditti. It is my 
intention to join some muleteers, and attempt to reach 
Granada, from whence, if possible, I shall proceed to 
Malaga or Gibraltar, and thence to Lisbon, where I left 
the greatest part of my baggage. Do not be surprised, 
therefore, if I am tardy in making my appearance ; it is 
no easy thing at present to travel in Spain. But all these 
troubles are for the benefit of the Cause, and must not be 
repined at." 3 

1 The Bible in Spain, pages 197-206. 

2 30th July 1836. 

3 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 10th August 1836. 



184 OPENING OF SPANISH CAMPAIGN [1836 

Leaving Madrid on 20th August, Borrow was at 
Granada on the 30th, as proved by the Visitors' Book, in 
which he signed himself 

" George Borrow Norvicensis." 

The real object of this visit appears to have been his 
desire to study more closely the Spanish gypsies. From 
Granada he proceeded to Malaga. Neither place can be 
said to be on the direct road to England ; but the disturbed 
state of the country had to be taken into consideration, and 
it was a question not of the shortest road but the safest. 

On. his return to London, early in October, Borrow 
wrote a report * upon his labours, roughly sketching out 
his work since he left Badajos. He repeated his view that 
the Papal See had lost its power over Spain, and that the 
present moment was a peculiarly appropriate one in which 
to spread the light of the Gospel over the Peninsula. For- 
getting the thievish propensities of the race, he wrote 
glowingly of the Spaniards and their intellectual equip- 
ment, the clearness with which they expressed them- 
selves, and the elegance of their diction. The mind 
of the Spaniard was a garden run to waste, and it was for 
the British and Foreign Bible Society to cultivate it and 
purge it of the rank and bitter weeds. 

He foresaw no difficulty whatever in disposing of 5000 
copies of the New Testament in a short time in the capital 
and provincial towns, in particular Cadiz and Seville 
where the people were more enlightened. He was not 
so confident about the rural districts, where those who 
assured him that they were acquainted with the New 
Testament said that it contained hymns addressed to the 
Virgin which were written by the Pope. 

1 17th October 1836. 



CHAPTER XII 

NOVEMBER 1 836 — MAY 1 837 

T)ORROW remained in England for a month (3rd 
■U October /4th November), during which time he con- 
ferred with the Committee and Officials at Earl Street as 
to the future programme in Spain. On 4th November, 
having sent to his mother £130 of the ^"150 he had drawn 
as salary, and promising to write to Mr Brandram from 
Cadiz, he sailed from London in the steamer Manchester, 
bound for Lisbon and Cadiz. 

In a letter to his mother, he describes his fellow 
passengers as invalids fleeing from the English winter. 
" Some of them are three parts gone with consump- 
tion," he writes, " some are ruptured, some have broken 
backs ; I am the only sound person in the ship, which is 
crowded to suffocation. I am in a little hole of a berth 
where I can scarcely breathe, and every now and then 
wet through." 

The horrors of the voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon 
he has described with terrifying vividness ; x how the 
engines broke down and the vessel was being driven on to 
Cape Finisterre ; how all hope had been abandoned, and 
the Captain had told the passengers of their impending 
fate ; how the wind suddenly " veered right about, and 
pushed us from the horrible coast faster than it had 
previously driven us towards it." 2 

During the whole of that terrible night Borrow had 

1 The Bible in Spain, pages 209-1 1. 2 Ibid., page 211. 

185 



186 AN AMAZING MISSIONARY [1836 

remained on deck, all the other passengers having been 
battened down below. He was almost drowned in the 
seas that broke over the vessel, and, on one occasion, was 
struck down by a water cask that had broken away from 
its lashings. Even after he had escaped Cape Finisterre, 
the ordeal was not over ; for the ship was in a sinking 
condition, and fire broke out on board. Eventually the 
engines were repaired, the fire extinguished, and Lisbon was 
reached on the 1 3th, where Borrow landed with his water- 
soaked luggage, and found on examination that the 
greater part of his clothes had been ruined. In spite of 
this experience, he determined to continue his voyage 
to Cadiz in the Manchester, probably for reasons of 
economy, indifferent to the fact that she was utterly 
unseaworthy, and that most of the other passengers had 
abandoned her. During his enforced stay in Lisbon, whilst 
the ship was being patched up, Borrow saw Mr Wilby and 
made enquiry into the state of the Society's affairs in 
Portugal. Many changes had taken place and the country 
was in a distracted state. 

After a week's delay at Lisbon the Manchester con- 
tinued her voyage to Cadiz, where she arrived without 
further mishap on the 21st. During this voyage a fellow 
passenger with Borrow was the Marques de Santa Coloma. 
" According to the expression of the Marques, when they 
stepped on to the quay at Cadiz, Borrow looked round, 
saw some Gitanos lounging there, said something that the 
Marques could not understand, and immediately 'that 
man became une grappe de Gitanos? They hung round 
his neck, clung to his knees, seized his hands, kissed his 
feet, so that the Marques hardly liked to join his comrade 
again after such close embraces by so dirty a company." x 

Borrow now found himself in his allotted field— unhappy, 
miserable, distracted Spain. Gomez, the Carlist leader, 
had been sweeping through Estremadura like a pestilence, 

1 The Rev. Wentworth Webster in The Journal of Gypsy Lore 
Society, vol. i., July 1888-Oct. 1889. 



xii] FEARS FOR BORROWS SAFETY 187 

and Borrow fully expected to find Seville occupied by his 
banditti ; but Carlists possessed no terrors for him. Unless 
he could do something to heal the spiritual wounds of the 
wretched country, he assured Mr Brandram, he would 
never again return to England. 

On 1st December Mr Brandram wrote to Borrow 
expressing deep sympathy with all he had been through, 
and adding: " If you go forward ... we will help you by 
prayer. If you retreat we shall welcome you cordially." 
He appears to have written before consulting with the 
Committee, who, on hearing of the actual state of affairs in 
Spain, became filled with misgiving and anxiety for the 
safety of their agent, who seemed to be destitute of fear. 
Mr Brandram had been content for Borrow to go forward 
if he so decided, but, as he wrote later, "your prospective 
dangers, while they created an absorbing interest, were 
viewed in different lights by the Committee," who 
thought they had " no right to commit you to such perils. 
My own feeling was that, while I could not urge you 
forward, there were peculiarities in your history and 
character that I would not keep you back if you were 
minded to go. A few felt with me — most, however, thought 
that you should have been restrained." 1 It was decided 
therefore to forbid him to proceed on his hazardous 
adventure, and accordingly a letter was addressed to him 
care of the British Consul at Cadiz. If Borrow received 
this he disregarded the instructions it contained. 

Cadiz proved to be in a state of great confusion. It 
was reported that numerous bands of Carlists were in the 
neighbourhood, and the whole city was in a state of 
ferment in consequence. In the coffee-houses the din of 
tongues was deafening ; would-be orators, sometimes as 
many as six at one time, sprang up upon chairs and tables 
and ventilated their political views. The paramount, nay, 
the only, interest was not in the words of Christ ; but the 
probable doings of the Carlists. 

1 Letter from Rev. A. Brandram, 6th Jan. 1837. 



188 AN AMAZING MISSIONARY [1836 

On the night of his arrival Borrow was taken ill with what, 
at the time, he thought to be cholera, and for some time in 
the little "cock-loft or garret" that had been allotted to him 
at the over-crowded French hotel, he was " in most acute 
pain, and terribly sick," drinking oil mixed with brandy. For 
two days he was so exhausted as to be able to do nothing. 

On the morning of the 24th he embarked in a small 
Spanish steamer bound for Seville, which was reached that 
same night. The sun had dissipated the melancholy and 
stupor left by his illness, and by the time he arrived at 
Seville he was repeating Latin verses and fragments of old 
Spanish ballads to a brilliant moon. The condition of 
affairs at Seville was as bad if not worse than at Cadiz. 
There was scarcely any communication with the capital, 
the diligences no longer ran, and even the fearless arrieros 
(muleteers) declined to set out. Famine, plunder and 
murder were let loose over the land. Bands of banditti 
robbed, tortured and slew in the name of Don Carlos. 
They stripped the peasantry of all they possessed, and 
the poor wretches in turn became brigands and preyed 
upon those weaker than themselves. Through all this 
Borrow had to penetrate in order to reach Madrid. Had 
the road been familiar to him he would have performed 
the journey alone, dressed either as a beggar or as a gypsy. 
It is obvious that he appreciated the hazardous nature of 
the journey he was undertaking, for he asked Mr Brandram, 
in the event of his death, to keep the news from old 
Mrs Borrow as long as possible and then to go down to 
Norwich and break it to her himself. 

At Seville Borrow encountered Baron Taylor, 1 whom 

1 Isidor Just Severin, Baron Taylor (1789-1879), was a naturalised 
Frenchman and a great traveller. In 1821 he, with Charles Nodier, 
wrote the play Bertram, which was produced with great success at 
Paris in 1821. Later he was made Commissaire du Theatre Francais, 
and authorised the production of Hernani and Le Mariage de 
Figaro. Later he became Inspecteur-Gen^ral des Beaux Arts (1838). 
When seen by Borrow in Seville he was collecting Spanish pictures 
for Louis-Philippe. 



xii] WITH SPUR AND CUDGEL 189 

he states that he had first met at Bayonne (during the 
" veiled period "), and later in Russia, beside the Bosphorus, 
and finally in the South of Ireland. Than Baron Taylor 
there was no one for whom Borrow entertained " a greater 
esteem and regard. . . . There is a mystery about him 
which, wherever he goes, serves not a little to increase the 
sensation naturally created by his appearance and manner." 1 
Borrow was much attracted to this mysterious personage, 
about whom nothing could be asserted " with downright 
positiveness." 

From Seville Borrow proceeded to Cordoba, accom- 
panied by " an elderly person, a Genoese by birth," 
whose acquaintance he had made and whom he hoped 
later to employ in the distribution of the Testaments. 
Borrow had hired a couple of miserable horses. The 
Genoese had not been in the saddle for some thirty years, 
and he was an old man and timid. His horse soon became 
aware of this, and neither whip nor spur could persuade 
it to exert itself. When approaching night rendered it 
necessary to make a special effort to hasten forward, the 
bridle of the discontented steed had to be fastened to that 
of its fellow, which was then urged forward " with spur 
and cudgel." Both the Genoese and his mount protested 
against such drastic measures, the one by entreaties to be 
permitted to dismount, the other by attempting to fling 
itself down. The only notice Borrow took of these protests 
was to spur and cudgel the more. 

On the night of the third day the party arrived 
at Cordoba, and was cordially welcomed by the Carlist 
innkeeper, who, although avowing himself strictly neutral, 
confessed how great had been his pleasure at welcoming 
the Carlists when they occupied the City a short time 
before. It was at this inn that Borrow explained to the 
elderly Genoese, who had indiscreetly resented his host's 
disrespectful remarks about the young Queen Isabel, 
how he invariably managed to preserve good relations 
1 The Bible in Spain, page 221. 



190 AN AMAZING MISSIONARY [1836 

with all sorts of factions. " My good man," he said, " I am 
invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I 
sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep ; at least I never say 
anything which can lead them to suspect the contrary ; by 
pursuing which system I have more than once escaped a 
bloody pillow, and having the wine I drank spiced with 
sublimate." 1 

Borrow remained at Cordoba much longer than he 
had intended, because of the reports that reached him 
of the unsafe condition of the roads. He sent back 
the old Genoese with the horses, and spent the time in 
thoroughly examining the town and making acquaint- 
ances among its inhabitants. At length, after a stay of 
ten or eleven days, despairing of any improvement in the 
state of the country, he continued his journey in the 
company of a contrabandista, temporarily retired from the 
smuggling trade, from whom he hired two horses for 
the sum of forty-two dollars. Borrow allowed no com- 
punction to assail him as to the means he employed when 
he was thoroughly convinced as to the worthiness of 
the end he had in view. To further his projects he would 
cheerfully have travelled with the Pope himself. 

The journey to Madrid proved dismal in the extreme. 
The contrabandista was sullen and gloomy, despite the 
fact that his horses had been insured against loss and 
the handsome fee he was to receive for his services. 
The Despenaperros in the Sierra Morena through which 
Borrow had to pass, had, even in times of peace, a most 
evil reputation ; but by great good luck for Borrow, the 
local banditti had during the previous day " committed a 
dreadful robbery and murder by which they sacked 40,000 
reals!' 2 They were in all probability too busily occupied 
in dividing their spoil to watch for other travellers. 
Another factor that was much in Borrow's favour was 
a change in the weather. 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 237. 

J Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 26th Dec. 1836. 



xil] " YOU HAVE ONLY TO COME TO ME " 191 

" Suddenly the Lord breathed forth a frozen blast," 
Borrow writes, " the severity of which was almost intoler- 
able. No human being but ourselves ventured forth. 
We traversed snow-covered plains, and passed through 
villages and towns to all appearance deserted. The 
robbers kept close to their caves and hovels, but the 
cold nearly killed us. We reached Aranjuez late on 
Christmas day, and I got into the house of an English- 
man, where I swallowed nearly a pint of brandy : : it 
affected me no more than warm water.' 2 

Borrow arrived at Madrid on 26th December, having 
almost by a miracle avoided death or capture by the 
human wolves that infested the country. He took up 
his quarters at 16 Calle de Santiago at the house of 
Maria Diaz, who was to prove so loyal a friend during 
many critical periods of his work in Spain. His first care 
was to call upon the British Minister, and enquire if he 
considered it safe to proceed with the printing without 
special application to the new Government. Mr Villiers' 
answer is interesting, as showing how thoroughly he had 
taken Borrow under his protection. 

"You obtained the permission of the Government of 
Isturitz," he replied, "which was a much less liberal one 
than the present ; I am a witness to the promise made to 
you by the former Ministers, which I consider sufficient ; 
you had best commence and complete the work as soon as 
possible without any fresh application, and should anyone 
attempt to interrupt you, you have only to come to me, 
whom you may command at any time." ;: 

Having saved the Bible Society 9000 reals in its paper 
bill alone, 4 Borrow proceeded to arrange for the printing. 

1 In letter to the Rev. A. Brandram (26th Dec. 1836), Borrow 
gives the quantity of brandy as two bottles. This letter was written 
within a few hours of the act and is more likely to be accurate. 

2 The Bible in Spam, page 254. 

3 Borrow's letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th Jan. 1837. 

1 He was authorised to purchase 600 reams at 60 reals per ream, 
whereas he paid only 45 reals a ream for a paper "better," he wrote, 
" than I could have purchased at 70." 



192 AN AMAZING MISSIONARY [1837 

He had already opened negotiations with Charles Wood, 
who was associated with Andreas Borrego, 1 the most 
fashionable printer in Madrid, who not only had the best 
printing-presses in Spain, but had been specially recom- 
mended by Isturitz. It had been tentatively arranged that 
an edition of 5000 copies of the New Testament should be 
printed from the version of Father Felipe Scio de San 
Miguel, confessor to Ferdinand VII., without notes or 
commentaries, and delivered within three months. 

Remembering the advice of Isturitz, Borrow deter- 
mined to entrust the work to Borrego, including the 
binding. He was the Government printer, and, further- 
more, enjoyed the good opinion of Mr Villiers. Having 
persuaded Borrego to reduce his price to 10 reals a sheet, 
he placed the order. It was agreed that the work should 
be completed in ten weeks from 20th January. 

Each sheet was to be passed by Borrow. As a matter 
of fact he read every word three times ; but in order to 
insure absolute accuracy, he engaged the services of Dr 
Usoz, "the first scholar in Spain," 2 who was to be 
responsible for the final revision, leaving the question of 
the remuneration to the generosity of the Bible Society. 
The result of all this care was that, according to Borrow 
the edition exhibited scarcely one typographical error. 3 

The question of systematic distribution had next to be 
considered. After much musing and cogitation, Borrow 
came to the conclusion that the only satisfactory method 

1 Author of La Historia de las Cortes de Espaua durante el Siglo 
XIX. (1885) and other works of a political character. He was also 
proprietor and editor of El Espahol. Isturitz had intended raising 
Borrego to the position of minister of finance when his government 
suddenly terminated. 

2 General report prepared by Borrow in the Autumn of 1838 for 
the General Committee of the Bible Society detailing his labours in 
Spain. This was subsequently withdrawn, probably on account of its 
somewhat aggressive tone. In the course of this work the document 
will be referred to as General Report, Withdrawn. 

3 To Rev. A. Brandram, 14th Jan. 1837. 



xil] A HEART-BREAKING PROSPECT 193 

was for him to " ride forth from Madrid into the wildest 
parts of Spain," where the word is most wanted and where 
it seems next to an impossibility to introduce it, and this 
he proposed to the Committee. 

" I will take with me 1200 copies," he wrote, 1 "which I 
will engage to dispose of for little or much to the wild 
people of the wild regions which I intend to visit ; as for the 
rest of the edition, it must be disposed of, if possible, in a 
different way — I may say the usual way ; part must be 
entrusted to booksellers, part to colporteurs, and a depot 
must be established at Madrid. Such work is every 
person's work, and to anyone may be confided the execu- 
tion of it ; it is a mere affair of trade. What I wish to be 
employed in is what, I am well aware, no other individual 
will undertake to do : namely, to scatter the Word upon the 
mountains, amongst the valleys and the inmost recesses of 
the worst and most dangerous parts of Spain, where the 
people are more fierce, fanatic and, in a word, Carlist." 

In the same letter Borrow shows how thoroughly he 
understood his own character when he wrote : 

" I shall not feel at all surprised should it [the plan] 
be disapproved of all-together ; but I wish it to be under- 
stood that in that event I could do nothing further than see 
the work through the' press, as I am confident that whatever 
ardour and zeal I at present feel in the cause would desert 
me immediately, and that I should neither be able nor 
willing to execute anything which might be suggested. I 
wish to engage in nothing which would not allow me to 
depend entirely on myself. It would be heart-breaking 
to me to remain at Madrid expending the Society's money, 
with almost the certainty of being informed eventually by 
the booksellers and their correspondents that the work 
has no sale. In a word, to make sure that some copies find 
their way among the people, I must be permitted to carry 
them to the people myself." 

He goes on to inform Mr Brandram that in anticipa- 
tion of the acquiescence of the Committee in his schemes, 
he has purchased, for about £\2, one of the smuggler's 
horses, which he has preferred to a mule, on account of the 

1 To Rev. A. Brandram, 14th Jan. 1837. 

N 



194 AN AMAZING MISSIONARY [1837 

expense of the popular hybrid, and also because of its 
enormous appetite, to satisfy which two pecks of barley 
and a proportionate amount of straw are required 
each twenty - four hours, as the beast must be fed 
every four hours, day and night. Thus the members of 
the Committee learned something about the ways of the 
mule. 

The response to this suggestion was a resolution passed 
by the Sub-Committee for General Purposes, by which 
Borrow was permitted to enter into correspondence with the 
principal booksellers and other persons favourable to the 
dissemination of the Scriptures. In a covering letter 1 
Mr Brandram very pertinently enquired, " Can the people 
in these wilds read ? " Whilst not wishing to put a final 
negative to the proposal, the Secretary asked if there were 
no middle course. Could Borrow not establish a depot at 
some principal place, and from it make excursions occupy- 
ing two or three days each, " instead of devoting yourself 
wholly to the wild people." 

Borrow assured Mr Brandram that he had misunder- 
stood. The care of " the wild people " was only to be 
incidental on his visits to towns and villages to establish 
depots or agencies. " On my way," he wrote, " I intended 
to visit the secret and secluded spots amongst the rugged 
hills and mountains, and to talk to the people, after my 
manner, of Christ." 2 

It was on 3rd April that Borrow had received the letter 
from Earl Street authorising him " to undertake the tour 
suggested ... for the purpose of circulating the Spanish 
New Testament in some of the principal cities of Spain." 
He was requested to write as frequently as possible, giving 
an account of his adventures. At the same time Mr 
Brandram wrote : " You will perceive by the Resolution 
that nearly all your requests are complied with. You 
have authority to go forth with your horses, and may you 

1 27th January 1837. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 27th Feb. 1837. 



xil] THE BLACK ANDALUSIAN 195 

have a prosperous journey. . . . Pray for wisdom to dis- 
cern between presumptuousness and want of Faith. 1 

The printing of the 5000 copies of the New Testament 
in Spanish was completed early in April, but there was 
considerable delay over the binding. The actual date of 
publication was 1st May. The work had been well done, 
and was " allowed by people who have perused it, and 
with no friendly feeling, to be one of the most correct 
works that have ever issued from the press in Spain, and 
to be an exceedingly favourable specimen of typography 
and paper." 2 

In addition to the contrabandist's horse, Borrow had 
acquired " a black Andalusian stallion of great size and 
strength, and capable of performing a journey of a hundred 
leagues in a week's time." 3 In spite of his unbroken state, 
Borrow decided to purchase the animal, relying upon " a 
cargo of bibles " to reduce him to obedience. It was with 
this black Andalusian that he created a sensation by riding 
about Madrid, " with a Russian skin for a saddle, and 
without stirrups. Altogether making so conspicuous a 
figure that [the Marques de] Santa Coloma hesitated, and 
it needed all his courage to be seen riding with him. At 
this period Borrow spent a good deal of money and lived 
very freely (i.e., luxuriously) in Spain. From the point of 
view of the Marques, a Spanish Roman Catholic, Borrow 
was excessively bigoted, and fond of attacking Roman 
Catholics and Catholicism. He evidently, however, liked 
him as a companion ; but he says Borrow never, as far as he 
saw or could learn, spoke of religion to his Gypsy friends, 
and that he soon noticed his difference of attitude towards 
them. He was often going to the British Embassy, and 
he thinks was considered a great bore there." 4 

1 Letter from Rev. A. Brandram to Borrow, 22nd March 1837. 

2 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Dec. 1837. 

3 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 27th February 1837, 

4 Rev. Wentworth Webster in The Journal of the Gypsy Lore 
Society, vol. i., July 1888-October 1889. 



196 AN AMAZING MISSIONARY [1837 

The unanimous advice of Borrow's friends, Protestant 
and Roman Catholic, was " that for the present I should 
proceed with the utmost caution, but without concealing 
the object of my mission." x He was to avoid offending 
people's prejudices and endeavour everywhere to keep on 
good terms with the clergy, "at least one-third of whom 
are known to be anxious for the dissemination of the 
Word of God, though at the same time unwilling to 
separate themselves from the discipline and ceremonials 
of Rome. 2 

Thus equipped with sage counsel, Borrow was just 
about to start upon his journey into the North, when he 
found it necessary to dismiss his servant owing to 
misconduct. This caused delay. Through Mr O'Shea, 
the banker, he got to know Antonio Buchini, the Greek of 
Constantinople, who, of all the strange characters Borrow 
had met he considered "the most surprising." 3 Antonio's 
vices were sufficiently obvious to discourage anyone from 
attempting to discover his virtues. He loved change, 
quarrelled with everybody, masters, mistresses, and fellow- 
servants. Borrow engaged him ; but looked to the future 
with misgiving. Antonio unquestionably had his bad 
points ; yet he was a treasure compared with the Spaniard 
whom he succeeded. This man was much given to drink 
and was always engaged in some quarrel. He drew 
his terrible knife, such as all Spaniards carry, upon all who 
offended him. On one occasion Borrow saved from his 
wrath a poor maid-servant who had incurred his ire by 
burning a herring she was toasting for him. Antonio's 
virtues comprised an unquestioned honesty and devotion, 
and on the whole he was a desirable servant in a country 
where such virtues were extremely rare. 

It was not until 15th May that Borrow, accompanied 
by Antonio, was able to get away from Madrid. A few 

1 General Report, withdrawn. 2 General Report, withdrawn. 

3 Borrow to Richard Ford. Letters of Richard Ford, 1797- 185 8. 
Ed. R. E. Prothero. Murray, 1905. 



xil] THE BARBER-SURGEONS REMEDY 197 

days previously he had contracted " a severe cold which 
terminated in a shrieking, disagreeable cough." This, 
following on a fortnight's attack of influenza, proved 
difficult to shake off. Finding himself scarcely able to 
stand, he at length appealed to a barber-surgeon, who 
drew 1 6 oz. of blood, assuring his patient that on the 
following day he would be well enough to start. 

That same evening Mr Villiers sent round to Borrow's 
lodgings informing him that he had decided to help him 
by every means in his power. He announced his intention 
of purchasing a large number of the Testaments, and 
despatching them to the various British Consuls in 
Spain, with instructions " to employ all the means 
which their official situation should afford them to 
circulate the books in question, and to assure their 
being noticed." 1 They were also to render every 
assistance in their power to Borrow " as a friend of Mr 
Villiers, and a person in the success of whose enterprise 
he himself took the warmest interest." 2 Mr Villiers' 
interest in Borrow's mission seems to have led him into 
a diplomatic indiscretion. Borrow himself confesses that 
he could scarcely believe his ears. Although assured 
of the British Minister's friendly attitude, he "could 
never expect that he would come forward in so 
noble, and to say the least of it, considering his high 
diplomatic situation, so bold and decided a manner." 3 
This act of friendliness becomes a personal tribute to 
Borrow, when it is remembered that at first Mr Villiers 
had been by no means well disposed towards the Bible 
Society. 

Before leaving Madrid, Borrow had circularised all the 
principal booksellers, offering to supply the New Testa- 
ment at fifteen reals a copy, the actual cost price ; but he 
was not sanguine as to the result, for he found the 
Spaniard " short-sighted and ... so utterly unacquainted 

1 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 7th June 1837. 

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 



198 AN AMAZING MISSIONARY [1837 

with the rudiments of business." 1 Advertisements had 
been inserted in all the principal newspapers stating that 
the booksellers of Madrid were now in a position to 
supply the New Testament in Spanish, unencumbered 
by obscuring notes and comments. Borrow also provided 
for an advertisement to be inserted each week during his 
absence, which he anticipated would be about five months. 
After that he knew not what would happen — there was 
always China. 

1 Letter from Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 27th February 
1837. 



CHAPTER XIII 

MAY — OCTOBER 1 837 

' I V HE prediction of the surgeon-barber was fulfilled ; 
■*■ by the next morning the fever and cough had con- 
siderably abated, although the patient was still weak from 
loss of blood. This, however, did not hinder him 
from mounting his black Andalusian, and starting upon 
his initial journey of distribution. On arriving at 
Salamanca, his first objective, he immediately sought out 
the principal bookseller and placed with him copies of 
the New Testament. He also inserted an advertisement 
in the local newspaper, stating that the volume was the 
only guide to salvation ; at the same time he called 
attention to the great pecuniary sacrifices that the Bible 
Society was making in order to proclaim Christ crucified. 
This advertisement he caused to be struck off in consider- 
able numbers as bills and posted in various parts of the 
town, and he even went so far as to affix one to the porch 
of the church. He also distributed them as he progressed 
through the villages. 1 

From Salamanca (10th June) Borrow journeyed to 

1 As the method adopted was practically the same in every town 
he visited, no further reference need be made to the fact, and in the 
brief survey of the journeys that Borrow himself has described so 
graphically, only incidents that tend to throw light upon his character 
or disposition, and such as he has not recorded himself, will be dealt 
with. 

199 



200 A PROVINCIAL TOUR [1837 

Valladolid, and from thence to Leon, 1 (a hotbed of 
Carlism), where the people were ignorant and brutal and 
refused to the stranger a glass of water, unless he were 
prepared to pay for it. At Leon he was seized by a fever 
that prostrated him for a week. He also experienced 
marked antagonism from the clergy, who threatened every 
direful consequence to whosoever read or purchased 
" the accursed books " which he brought. A more serious 
evidence of their displeasure was shown by the action they 
commenced in the ecclesiastical court against the book- 
seller whom Borrow had arranged with to act as agent for 
his Testaments. The bookseller himself did not mend 
matters by fixing upon the doors of the cathedral itself 
one of the advertisements that he had received with the 
books. 

When sufficiently recovered to travel, Borrow proceeded 
to Astorga, which he reached with the utmost difficulty 
owing to bad roads and the fierce heat. 

" We were compelled to take up our abode," he writes, 2 
" in a wretched hovel full of pigs' vermin and misery, and 
from this place I write, for this morning I felt myself 
unable to proceed on my journey, being exhausted with 
illness, fatigue and want of food, for scarcely anything is to 
be obtained ; but I return God thanks and glory for being 
permitted to undergo these crosses and troubles for His 
Word's sake. I would not exchange my present situation, 
unenviable as some may think it, for a throne." 

Thus Borrow wrote when burning with fever, after having 
just been told to vacate his room at the posada, and having 
his luggage flung into the yard to make room for the 
occupants of the " waggon " from Madrid to Corufia. 

1 Via Pitiegua, Pedroso, Medina del Campo, Duefias Palencia. 

" I suffered dreadfully during this journey," Borrow wrote, "as did 
likewise my man and horses, for the heat was the fiercest which I have 
ever known, and resembled the breath of the simoon or the air from 
an oven's mouth." — Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 5th July 1837. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 5th July 1837. 



xiil] THE GRAND POST 201 

From Astorga he proceeded by way of Puerto de 
Manzanal, Bembibre, Cacabelos, Villafranca, Puerto de 
Fuencebadon and Nogales, " through the wildest mountains 
and wildernesses " to Lugo. 

Owing to the unsafety of the roads, it was customary 
for travellers to attach themselves to the Grand Post, 
which was always guarded by an escort. At Nogales 
Borrow joined the mail courier ; but as a rule he was too 
independent, too much in a hurry, and too indifferent to 
danger to wait for such protection against the perils of the 
robber-infested roads. He has given the following graphic 
account "of the grand post from Madrid to Coruna . . . 
attended by a considerable escort, and an immense number 
of travellers. . . . We were soon mounted and in the street, 
amidst a confused throng of men and quadrupeds. The 
light of a couple of flambeaus, which were borne before the 
courier, shone on the arms of several soldiers, seemingly 
drawn up on either side of the road ; the darkness, how- 
ever, prevented me from distinguishing objects very 
clearly. The courier himself was mounted on a little 
shaggy pony ; before and behind him were two immense 
portmanteaus, or leather sacks, the ends of which nearly 
touched the ground. For about a quarter of an hour there 
was much hubbub, shouting, and trampling, at the end of 
which period the order was given to proceed. Scarcely 
had we left the village when the flambeaus were ex- 
tinguished, and we were left in almost total darkness. . . . 
In this manner we proceeded for several hours, up hill and 
down dale, but generally at a very slow pace. The soldiers 
who escorted us from time to time sang patriotic songs. 
... At last the day began to break, and I found myself 
amidst a train of two or three hundred people, some on 
foot, but the greater part mounted, either on mules or the 
pony mares : I could not distinguish a single horse except 
my own and Antonio's. A few soldiers were thinly 
scattered along the road." 1 

1 The Bible in Spain, pages 352-4. 



202 A PROVINCIAL TOUR [1837 

After about a week's stay at Lugo, Borrow again 
attached himself to the Grand Post ; but tiring of its slow 
and deliberate progress, he decided to push on alone, and 
came very near to falling a prey to the banditti. He was 
suddenly confronted by two of the fraternity, who presented 
their carbines, " which they probably intended to discharge 
into my body, but they took fright at the noise of Antonio's 
horse, who was following a little way behind." * 

The night was spent at Betanzos, where the black 
Andalusian was stricken with "a deep, hoarse cough." 
Remembering a prophetic remark that had been made by 
a roadside acquaintance to the effect that " the man must 
be mad who brings a horse to Galicia, and doubly so he 
who brings an entero" Borrow, determined to have the 
animal bled, sent for a farrier, meanwhile rubbing down his 
steed with a quart of anis brandy. The farrier demanded 
an ounce of gold for the operation, which decided 
Borrow to perform it himself. With a large fleam 
that he possessed, he twice bled the Andalusian, to 
the astonishment of the discomfited farrier, and saved its 
valuable life, also an ounce of gold. Next day he and 
Antonio walked to Coruna, leading their horses. 

At Coruna were five hundred copies of the New 
Testament that had been sent on from Madrid. So far 
Borrow had himself disposed of sixty-five copies, irrespec- 
tive of those sold at Lugo and other places by means of 
the advertisement. These books were all sold at prices 
ranging from 10 to 12 reals each. Borrow made a special 
point of this, " to give a direct lie to the assertion " that the 
Bible Society, having no vent for the Bibles and New 
Testaments it printed, was forced either to give them 
away or sell them by auction, when they were purchased 
as waste paper. 

The condition of the roads at that period was so bad, 
on account of robbers and Carlists, that it was forbidden to 
anyone to travel along the thoroughfare leading to Santiago 
1 The Bible in Spain, page 364. 



xiii] THE VIPER-CATCHER'S MARTYRDOM 203 

unless in company with the mail courier and his escort of 
soldiers. Unfortunately for Borrow his black Andalusian 
was not of a companionable disposition, and to bring him 
near other horses was to invite a fierce contest. On the 
rare occasions that he did travel with the Grand Post, 
Borrow was frequently involved in difficulties on account of 
the enterds unsociable nature ; but as he was deeply 
attached to the noble beast, he retained him and suffered 
dangers rather than give up the companion of many an 
adventure. 

Some idea may be obtained of the state of rural Spain 
in 1837, when the highways teemed with "patriots" bent 
upon robbing friend and foe alike and afterwards assas- 
sinating or mutilating their victims, from a story that 
Borrow tells of how a viper-catcher, who was engaged in 
pursuing his calling in the neighbourhood of Orense, fell 
into the hands of these miscreants, who robbed and stripped 
him. They then pinioned his hands behind him and drew 
over his head the mouth of the bag containing the living 
vipers, which they fastened round his neck and listened 
with satisfaction to the poor wretch's cries. The reptiles 
stung their victim to madness, and after having run raving 
through several villages he eventually fell dead. 1 

Making Coruna his headquarters, Borrow proceeded to 
Santiago, " travelling with the courier or weekly post," and 
from thence to Padron, Pontevedra, and Vigo. At Vigo 
he was apprehended as a spy, but immediately released. 

It was whilst at Santiago that he repeated an experi- 
ment he had previously made at Valladolid. 

" I . . . sallied forth," he writes, 2 " alone and on horse- 
back, and bent my course to a distant village ; on my 
arrival, which took place just after the siesta or afternoon's 
nap had concluded, I proceeded ... to the market place, 

1 This is the story particularly referred to by Richard Ford in 
his report upon the MS. of The Bible in Spain. 

2 In the Report to the General Committee of the Bible Society on 
Past and Future Operations in Spain, November 1838. 



204 A PROVINCIAL TOUR [1837 

where I spread a horse-cloth on the ground, upon which I 
deposited my books. I then commenced crying with a 
loud voice : ' Peasants, peasants, I bring you the Word of 
God at a cheap price. I know you have but little money, 
but I bring it you at whatever you can command, at four 
or three reals, according to your means.' I thus went on 
till a crowd gathered round me, who examined the books 
with attention, many of them reading aloud, but I had 
not long to wait ; . . . my cargo was disposed of almost 
instantaneously, and I mounted my horse without a 
question being asked me, and returned to my temporary 
abode lighter than I came." 

Borrow did not repeat the experiment for fear of 
giving offence to the clergy. The new means of distribu- 
tion was to be used only as a last resource. 

Arriving at Padron on the return journey, Borrow 
found that he had only one book left. He determined to 
send Antonio forward with the horses to await him at 
Corufia, whilst he made an excursion to Cape Finisterre. 

" It would be," he says, "difficult to assign any plausible 
reason for the ardent desire which I entertained to visit 
this place ; but I remembered that last year I had escaped 
almost by a miracle from shipwreck and death on the 
rocky sides of this extreme point of the Old World, and I 
thought that to convey the Gospel to a place so wild and 
remote might perhaps be considered an acceptable 
pilgrimage in the eyes of my Maker." x 

Hiring a guide and a pony, he reached the Cape, after 
surmounting tremendous difficulties, and on arrival he and 
his guide were arrested as Carlist spies. 2 In all probability 
he would have been shot, such was the certainty of the 
Alcalde that he was a spy, had not the professional hero of 
the place come forward and, after having cross-examined him 
as to his knowledge of " knife " and " fork," the only two 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 409. 

2 In The Bible in Spain Borrow says he was arrested on suspicion 
of being the Pretender himself; but in a letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 
15th September 1837, he says that he and his guide were seized as 
Carlist spies, and makes no mention of Don Carlos. 



xiii.] A DEAL IN HORSE-FLESH 205 

English words the Spaniard knew, pronounced him English, 
and eventually conveyed him to the Alcalde of Convucion, 
who released him. On the man who had saved him 
Borrow privately bestowed a gratuity, and publicly the 
copy of the New Testament that had led to the expedi- 
tion. He then returned to Coruna, by his journey 
having accomplished "what has long been one of the 
ardent wishes of my heart. I have carried the Gospel to 
the extreme point of the Old World." l 

The black Andalusian was totally unfitted for the long 
mountainous journey into the Asturias that Borrow now 
planned to undertake, and he decided to dispose of him. 
He was greatly attached to the creature, notwithstanding 
his vicious habits and the difficulties that arose out of 
them. Now the entero would be engaged in a deadly 
struggle with some gloomy mule ; again, by rushing 
among a crowd outside a posada, he would do infinite 
damage and earn for his master and himself an evil name. 
Borrow thus announces to the Bible Society the sale of its 
property : " This animal cost the Society about 2000 reals 
at Madrid ; I, however, sold him for 3000 at Coruna, 
notwithstanding that he has suffered much from the hard 
labour which he had been subjected to in our wanderings 
in Galicia, and likewise from bad provender." 2 

Borrow next set out upon an .expedition to Orviedo in 
the Asturias, 3 then in daily expectation of being attacked 
by the Carlists. It was at Orviedo that he received 
a striking tribute from a number of Spanish gentlemen. 

" A strange adventure has just occurred to me," he 
wrote. i "I am in the ancient town of Orviedo, in a very 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 15th September 1837. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th September 1837. 

3 By way of Ferrol, Novales, Santa Maria, Coisa d'Ouro, Viviero, 
Foz, Rivadeo, Castro Pol, Navaia, Luarca, the Caneiro, Las Bellotas, 
Soto Luino, Muros, Aviles and Gijon. 

4 To the Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1837. The story also 
appears in The Bible in Spain, pages 479-480. 



206 A PROVINCIAL TOUR [1837 

large, scantily furnished and remote room of an ancient 
posada, formerly a palace of the Counts of Santa Cruz, 
it is past ten at night and the rain is descending in 
torrents. I ceased writing on hearing numerous foot- 
steps ascending the creeking stairs which lead to my 
apartment — the door was flung open, and in walked nine 
men of tall stature, marshalled by a little hunchbacked 
personage. They were all muffled in the long cloaks of 
Spain, but I instantly knew by their demeanour that 
they were caballeros, or gentlemen. They placed them- 
selves in a rank before the table where I was sitting ; 
suddenly and simultaneously they all flung back their 
cloaks, and I perceived that every one bore a book in his 
hand, a book which I knew full well. After a pause, 
which I was unable to break, for I sat lost in astonish- 
ment and almost conceived myself to be visited by 
apparitions, the hunchback advancing somewhat before 
the rest, said, in soft silvery tones, ' Sefior Cavalier, was 
it you who brought this book to the Asturias ? ' I now 
supposed that they were the civil authorities of the place 
come to take me into custody, and, rising from my seat, 
I exclaimed : ' It certainly was I, and it is my glory 
to have done so ; the book is the New Testament of God ; 
I wish it was in my power to bring a million.' ' I heartily 
wish so too,' said the little personage with a sigh ; ' be under 
no apprehension, Sir Cavalier, these gentlemen are my 
friends. We have just purchased these books in the shop 
where you have placed them for sale, and have taken the 
liberty of calling upon you in order to return you our 
thanks for the treasure you have brought us. I hope 
you can furnish us with the Old Testament also ! ' I 
replied that I was sorry to inform him that at present it 
was entirely out of my power to comply with his wish, 
as I had no Old Testaments in my possession, but I did 
not despair of procuring some speedily from England. 1 
He then asked me a great many questions concerning 

1 Borrow's original idea in printing only the New Testament was 
that in Spain and Portugal he deemed it better not to publish the 
whole Bible, at least not "until the inhabitants become christianised," 
because the Old Testament " is so infinitely entertaining to the carnal 
man," and he feared that in consequence the New Testament would 
be little read. Later he saw his mistake, and was constantly asking 
for Bibles, for which there was a big demand. 



xiil] THE TEN GENTLEMEN OF ORVIEDO 207 

my Biblical travels in Spain and my success, and the 
views entertained by the Society in respect to Spain, 
adding that he hoped we should pay particular attention 
to the Asturias, which he assured me was the best ground 
in the Peninsula for our labour. After about half an 
hour's conversation, he suddenly said in the English 
language, ' Good night, Sir,' wrapped his cloak around 
him and walked out as he had come. His companions, 
who had hitherto not uttered a word, .all repeated, 
1 Good night, Sir,' and adjusting their cloaks followed 
him." 

This anecdote greatly impressed the General Committee. 
Mr Brandram wrote (15th November 1837): "We were all 
deeply interested with your ten gentlemen of Orviedo. 
I have introduced them at several meetings." 

Whilst at Orviedo, Borrow began to be very uneasy 
about the state of affairs at the capital. " Madrid," he 
wrote, 1 " is the depot of our books, and I am apprehensive 
that in the revolutions and disturbances which at present 
seem to threaten it, our whole stock may perish. True it 
is that in order to reach Madrid I should have to pass 
through the midst of the Carlist hordes, who would perhaps 
slay or make me prisoner ; but I am at present so much 
accustomed to perilous adventure, and have hitherto 
experienced so many fortunate escapes, that the dangers 
which infest the route would not deter me a moment 
from venturing. But there is no certain intelligence, 
and Madrid may be in safety or on the brink of 
falling." 

Another factor that made him desirous of returning to 
the capital was that, ever since leaving Corufia, he had 
been afflicted with a dysentery and, later, with ophthalmia, 
which resulted from it, and he was anxious to obtain 
proper medical advice. He determined, however, first 
to carry out his project of visiting Santander, which he 
reached by way of Villa Viciosa, Colunga, Riba de Sella, 
Llanes, Colombres, San Vicente, Santillana. It was at 
1 To Rev. A. Brandram, 29th September 1837. 



208 A PROVINCIAL TOUR [1837 

Santander that he encountered the unfortunate Flinter, 1 
as brave with his sword as with his tongue. 

Instructions had been given in a letter to Borrego to 
forward to Santander two hundred copies of the New 
Testament ; but, much to Borrow's disappointment, he 
found that they had not arrived. He thought that either 
they had fallen into the hands of the Carlists, or his letter 
of instruction had miscarried : as a matter of fact they 
did not leave Madrid until 30th October, the day before 
Borrow arrived at the capital. Thus his journey was 
largely wasted. It would be folly to remain at Santander, 
where, in spite of the strictest economy, his expenses 
amounted to two pounds a day, whilst a further supply 
of books was obtained. Accordingly he determined to 
make for Madrid without further delay. 

Purchasing a small horse, and notwithstanding that 
he was so ill as scarcely to be able to support himself; 
indifferent to the fact that the country between Santander 
and Madrid was overrun with Carlists, whose affairs in 
Castile had not prospered ; too dispirited to collect his 
thoughts sufficiently to write to Mr Brandram, he set 
out, accompanied by Antonio, " determined to trust, as 
usual, in the Almighty and to venture." Physical ailments, 
however, did not in any way cause him to forget why 
he had come to Santander, and before leaving he made 
tentative arrangements with the booksellers of the town 
as to what they should do in the event of his being able 
to send them a supply of Testaments. 

That journey of a hundred leagues was a nightmare. 
" Robberies, murders, and all kinds of atrocity were 
perpetrated before, behind, and on both sides " of them ; 
but they passed through it all as if travelling along an 

1 George Dawson Flinter, an Irishman in the service of Queen 
Isabella II., who fought for his adopted Queen with courage and 
distinction, and eventually committed suicide as a protest against the 
monstrously unjust conspiracy to bring about his ruin, September 
1838. 



xiii.] THE ADMIRABLE ANTONIO 209 

English highway. Even when met at the entrance of the 
Black Pass by a man, his face covered with blood, who 
besought him not to enter the pass, where he had just been 
robbed of all he possessed, Borrow, without making reply, 
proceeded on his way. He was too ill to weigh the risks, 
and Antonio followed cheerfully wherever his master went. 
Madrid was reached on 31st October. 1 The next day 
Borrow wrote to Mr Brandram : " People say we have 
been very lucky; Antonio says, 'It was so written'; but 
I say, Glory be to the Lord for His mercies vouchsafed." 

The expedition to the Northern Provinces had 
occupied five and a half months. Every kind of fatigue 
had been experienced, dangers had been faced, even 
courted, and every incident of the road turned to further 
the end in view — the distribution of the Scriptures in 
Spain. The countryside had proved itself ignorant and 
superstitious, and the towns eager, not for the Word of 
God but " for stimulant narratives, and amongst too many 
a lust for the deistical writings of the French, especially 
for those of Talleyrand, which have been translated into 
Spanish and published by the press of Barcelona, and for 
which I was frequently pestered." 2 Antonio had proved 
himself a unique body-servant and companion, and if with 
a previous employer he had valued his personal comfort 
so highly as to give notice because his mistress's pet 
quail disturbed his slumbers, he was nevertheless utterly 
indifferent to the hardships and discomforts that he 
endured when with Borrow, and always proved cheerful 
and willing. 

Borrow had " by private sale disposed of one hundred 
and sixteen Testaments to individuals entirely of the 
lower classes, namely, muleteers, carmen, contrabandistas, 
etc." 3 He had dared to undertake what perhaps only he 
was capable of carrying to a successful issue ; for, left 

1 By way of Ontaneda, Ona, Burgos, Vallodolid, Guadarrama. , 

2 General Report, withdrawn. 

3 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 1st November 1837. 

O 



210 A PROVINCIAL TOUR [1837 

alone to make his own plans and conduct the campaign 
along his own lines, Borrow has probably never been 
equalled as a missionary, strange though the term may 
seem when applied to him. His fear of God did not 
hinder him from making other men fear God's instrument, 
himself. His fine capacity for affairs, together with what 
must have appeared to the clergy of the districts through 
which he passed his outrageous daring, conspired to his 
achieving what few other men would have thought, and 
probably none were capable of undertaking. A mission- 
ary who rode a noble, black Andalusian stallion, who 
could use a fleam as well as a blacksmith's hammer, who 
could ride barebacked, and, above all, made men fear him 
as a physical rather than a spiritual force, was new in 
Spain, as indeed elsewhere. The very novelty of Borrow's 
methods, coupled with the daring and unconventional 
independence of the man himself, ensured the success of 
his mission. There was something of the Camel-Driver 
of Mecca about his missionary work. He saw nothing 
anomalous in being possessed of a strong arm as well 
as a Christian spirit. He would endeavour to win over 
the ungodly ; but woe betide them if they should 
attempt to pit their strength against his. Borrow's own 
comment upon his journey in the Northern Provinces was, 
" Insignificant are the results of man's labours compared 
with the swelling ideas of his presumption ; something, 
however, had been effected by the journey which I had 
just concluded." 1 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 507. 



CHAPTER XIV 

NOVEMBER 1 837 — APRIL 1 838 

f~^* REAT changes had taken place in Madrid during 
^-* Borrow's absence. The Carlists had actually appeared 
before its gates, although they had subsequently retired. 
Liberalism had been routed and a Moderado Cabinet, 
under the leadership of Count Ofalia, ruled the city and 
such part of the country as was sufficiently complaisant as 
to permit itself to be ruled. As the Moderados represented 
the Court faction, Borrow saw that he had little to expect 
from them. He was unacquainted with any of the 
members of the Cabinet, and, what was far more serious 
for him, the relations between the new Government and 
Sir George Villiers x were none too cordial, as the British 
Minister had been by no means favourable to the new 
ministry. 

Having written to Mr Brandram telling of his arrival 
in Madrid, " begging pardon for all errors of commission 
and omission," and confessing himself " a frail and foolish 
vessel," that had " accomplished but a slight portion of 
what I proposed in my vanity," Borrow proceeded to dis- 
prove his own assertion. 

He found the affairs of the Bible Society in a far from 

flourishing condition. The Testaments had not sold to 

any considerable extent, for which " only circumstances and 

the public poverty " were the cause, as Dr Usoz explained. 

To awaken interest in his campaign, Borrow planned to 

1 He was created G.C.B. 19th Oct. 18^7. 
211 ° 



212 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1837 

print a thousand advertisements, which were to be posted in 
various parts of the city, and to employ colporteurs to 
vend the books in the streets. He despatched consign- 
ments of books to towns he had visited that required them, 
and in the enthusiasm of his eager and active mind 
foresaw that, " as the circle widens in the lake into which a 
stripling has cast a pebble, so will the circle of our useful- 
ness continue widening, until it has embraced the whole 
vast region of Spain. 1 

It soon became evident that there was to be a very 
strong opposition. A furious attack upon the Bible Society 
was made in a letter addressed to the editors of El Espanol 
on 5th November, prefixed to a circular of the Spiritual 
Governor of Valencia, forbidding the purchase or reading 
of the London edition of Father Scio's Bible. The letter 
described the Bible Society as " an infernal society," and 
referred in passing to " its accursed fecundity." It also 
strongly resented the omission of the Apocrypha from the 
Scio Bible. Borrow promptly replied to this attack in a 
letter of great length, and entirely silenced his antagonist, 
whom he described to Mr Brandram (20th Nov.) as " an 
unprincipled benefice-hunting curate." " You will doubtless 
deem it too warm and fiery," he writes, referring to his 
reply, " but tameness and gentleness are of little avail 
when surrounded by the vassal slaves of bloody Rome." 2 
Borrow's response to the "benefice-hunting curate" not 
only silenced him, but was listened to by the General 
Committee of the Society " with much pleasure." 

The cause of the trouble in Valencia lay with the other 
agent of the Bible Society in Spain, Lieutenant James 
Newenham Graydon, R.N., who first took up the work of 
distributing the Scriptures at Gibraltar in 1835. Here he 
became associated with the Rev. W. H. Rule, of the 
Wesleyan Methodist Society. " The Lieutenant, who 
seems to have combined the personal charm of the Irish 

1 Letter from Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 20th Nov. 1837. 

2 To the Rev. A. Brandram, 20th Nov. 1837. 



xiv.] A NAVAL MISSIONARY 213 

gentleman with some of the perfervid incautiousness of 
the Keltic temperament, finding himself unemployed at 
Gibraltar, resolved to do what lay in his power for the 
spiritual enlightenment of Spain. Without receiving a 
regular commission from any society, he took up single- 
handed the task which he had imposed upon himself." 1 

Borrow had first met Lieutenant Graydon at Madrid, 
in the summer of 1836, where he saw him two or three 
times. When Graydon left, on account of the heat, Borrow 
had removed to Graydon's lodgings as being more com- 
fortable than his own. The prohibition in Valencia was 
directly due to the indiscretion and incaution of Graydon. 
The Vicar-General of the province gave as a reason for his 
action, an advertisement that had appeared in the Diario 
Comercial of Valencia, undertaking to supply Bibles gratis 
to those who could not afford to buy them. For this 
advertisement Graydon was admonished by the General 
Committee, which refused to entertain his plea that, being 
unpaid, he was not, strictly speaking, an agent of the Bible 
Society. He was given to understand that as the Society 
was responsible for his acts he must be guided by its views 
and wishes. 

The next occasion on which Borrow came into conflict 
with this impulsive missionary free-lance was in March 
1838, when he heard from the Rev. W. H. Rule that 
Graydon was on his way to Andalusia. Borrow immedi- 
ately wrote to Mr Brandram that he, acting on the advice 
of Sir George Villiers, had already planned an expedition 
into that province, and furthermore that he had despatched 
there a number of Testaments. He explained to Mr 
Brandram that he was apprehensive " of the re-acting at 
Seville of the Valencian Drama, which I have such 
unfortunate cause to rue, as I am the victim on whom an 
aggravated party have wreaked their vengeance, and for 
the very cogent reason that I was within their reach." - 

1 History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, W. Canton. 

2 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th March 1838. 



214 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1837 

On this occasion Graydon was instructed not to start upon 
his projected journey, although Mr Brandram gave the 
order much against his own inclination. 1 

One great difficulty that Borrow had to contend with 
was the apathy of the Madrid booksellers, who " gave them- 
selves no manner of trouble to secure the sale, and even 
withheld [the] advertisements from the public." 2 This 
determined him to open a shop himself, and, accordingly, 
towards the end of November, he secured premises in the 
Calle del Principe, one of the main thoroughfares, for 
which he agreed to pay a rent of eight reals a day. He 
furnished the premises handsomely, with glass cases and 
chandeliers, and caused to be painted in large yellow 
characters the sign " Despacho de la Sociedad Biblica y 
Estrangera" (Depot of the Biblical and Foreign Society). 
He engaged a Gallegan (Jose Calzado, whom he called 
Pepe) as salesman, and on 27th November formally opened 
his new premises. Customers soon presented themselves ; 
but many were disappointed on finding that they could not 
obtain the Bible. " I could have sold ten times the amount 
of what I did," Borrow writes. " I must therefore be 
furnished with Bibles instanter ; send me therefore the 
London edition, bad as it is, say 500 copies." 3 

To facilitate the passing of these books through the 
customs, Borrow suggested that they should be consigned 
to the British Consul at Cadiz, who was friendly to the 
Society and " would have sufficient influence to secure 

1 Mr Brandram wrote to Graydon (12th April 1838): " Mr Rule 
being at Madrid and having conferred with Mr Borrow and Sir 
George Villiers, it appears to have struck them all three that a visit on 
your part to Cadiz and Seville could not at present be advantageous 
to our cause." 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 20th November 1837. 

3 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 28th November 1837. The com- 
ment on the badness of the London edition had reference to the 
translation, which Borrow had condemned with great vigour ; he 
subsequently admitted that he had been too sweeping in his 
disapproval. 



xiv.] ANTONIO'S ADIEU 215 

their admission into Spain. But the most advisable way," 
he goes on to explain with great guile, " would be to pack 
them in two chests, placing at the top Bibles in English and 
other languages, for there is a demand, viz., ioo English, 
ioo French, 50 German, 50 Hebrew, 50 Greek, 10 Modern 
Greek, 10 Persian, 20 Arabic. Pray do not fail." 1 

When Sir George Villiers first obtained from Isturitz 
permission for Borrow to print and sell the New Testament 
in Spanish without notes, he had cautioned him " to use 
the utmost circumspection, and in order to pursue his 
vocation with success, to avoid offending popular prejudices, 
which would not fail to be excited against a Protestant 
and a Foreigner engaged in the propagation of the 
Gospel." 2 This warning the British Minister had repeated 
frequently since. It was without consulting Sir George 
that Borrow opened his depot, and " imprudently painted 
upon the window that it was the Depot of the London 
{sic) Bible Society for the sale .of Bibles. I told him," Sir 
George writes " that such a measure would render the 
interference of the Authorities inevitable, and so it turned 
out." 3 

Borrow now lost the services of the faithful Antonio, 
who, on the last day of the year, informed him that he had 
become unsettled and dissatisfied with everything at his 
master's lodgings, including the house, the furniture, and 
the landlady herself. Therefore he had hired himself out 
to a count for four dollars a month less than he was 
receiving from Borrow, because he was " fond of change, 
though it be for the worse. Adieu, mon viaitre" he said 
in parting ; " may you be as well served as you deserve. 
Should you chance, however, to have any pressing need de 
mes soins, send for me without hesitation, and I will at 
once give my new master warning." A few days later 
Borrow engaged a Basque, named Francisco, who " to the 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 28th November 1837. 

J Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 5th May 1838. 

3 Ibid. 



216 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1837 

strength of a giant joined the disposition of a lamb,' x and 
who had been strongly recommended to him. 

On his return from a hurried visit to Toledo, Borrow 
found his Despacho succeeding as well as could be expected. 
To call attention to his premises he now took an extremely 
daring step. He caused to be printed three thousand 
copies of an advertisement on paper yellow, blue, and 
crimson, "with which I almost covered the sides of the 
streets " he wrote, " and besides this inserted notices in all 
the journals and periodicals, employing also a man, after the 
London fashion, to parade the streets with a placard, to the 
astonishment of the populace." 2 The result of this move, 
Borrow declared, was that every man, woman and child in 
Madrid became aware of the existence of his Despacho, as 
well they might. In spite of this commercial enterprise, 
the first month's trading showed a sale of only between 
seventy and eighty New Testaments, and ten Bibles, 3 these 
having been secured from a Spanish bookseller who had 
brought them secretly from Gibraltar, but who was afraid 
to sell them himself. Mr Brandram's comment upon the 
letter from Borrow telling of the posters was that its contents 
had " afforded us no little merriment. The idea of your 
placards and placard-bearers in Madrid is indeed a novel 
one." It cannot but be effectual in giving publicity. I 
sincerely hope it may not be prejudicial. 4 

When in England, at the end of 1836, Borrow had been 
authorised by the Bible Society to find " a person 
competent to translate the Scriptures in Basque." On 
27th February 1837, he wrote telling Mr Brandram that 
he had become " acquainted with a gentleman well versed 
in that dialect, of which I myself have some knowledge." 

1 The Gypsies of Spain, page 241. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Dec. 1837. 

3 These Bibles fetched, the large edition (Borrow wrote " I would 
give my right hand for a thousand of them") 17s. each, and the 
smaller 7s. each, whereas the New Testaments fetched about half-a 
crown. 

4 Letter dated 16th Jan. 1838. 



xiv.] REFORMING THE GYPSIES 217 

Dr Oteiza, the domestic physician of the Marques de 
Salvatierra, was accordingly commissioned to proceed with 
the work, for which, when completed, he was paid the sum 
of " £8 and a few odd shillings." Borrow reported to Mr 
Brandram (7th June 1837) : 

" I have examined it with much attention, and find 
it a very faithful version. The only objection which can be 
brought against it is that Spanish words are frequently 
used to express ideas for which there are equivalents in 
Basque; but this language, as spoken at present in Spain, 
is very corrupt, and a work written entirely in the Basque 
of Larramendi's Dictionary would be intelligible to very 
few. I have read passages from it to men of Guipuscoa, 
who assured me that they had no difficulty in understanding 
it, and that it was written in the colloquial style of the 
province." 

Borrow had " obtained a slight acquaintance " with 
Basque when a youth, which he lost no opportunity of 
extending by mingling with Biscayans during his stay in 
the Peninsula. He also considerably improved himself in 
the language by conversing with his Basque servant 
Francisco. Borrow now decided to print the Gitano and 
Basque versions of St Luke, which he accordingly put in 
hand ; but as the compositors were entirely ignorant of 
both languages, he had to exercise the greatest care in 
reading the proofs. 

During his stay in Spain he had found time to trans- 
late into the dialect of the Spanish gypsies the greater 
part of the New Testament. 1 His method had been 
somewhat original. Believing that there is " no indi- 
vidual, however wicked and hardened, who is utterly 
godless? 2 he determined to apply his belief to the gypsies. 
To enlist their interest in the work, he determined 
to allow them to do the translating themselves. At 
one period of his residence in Madrid he was regularly 

1 In The Bible in Spain he says "the greater part," in The Gypsies 
of Spain he says " the whole." 

2 The Gypsies of Spain, page 275. 



218 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1837 

visited by two gypsy women, and these he decided 
to make his translators ; for he found the women 
far more amenable than the men. In spite of the fact 
that he had already translated into Gitano the New 
Testament, or the greater part of it, he would read out 
to the women from the Spanish version and let them 
translate it into Romany themselves, thus obtaining the 
correct gypsy idiom. The women looked forward to these 
gatherings and also to "the one small glass of Malaga" 
with which their host regaled them. They had got as far 
as the eighth chapter before the meetings ended. What 
was the moral effect of St Luke upon the minds of two 
gypsies? Borrow confessed himself sceptical ; first, because 
he was acquainted with the gypsy character ; second, 
because it came to his knowledge that one of the 
women " committed a rather daring theft shortly after- 
wards, which compelled her to conceal herself for a 
fortnight." l Borrow comforted himself with the reflection 
that " it is quite possible, however, that she may remember 
the contents of those chapters on her death-bed." 2 The 
translation of the remaining chapters was supplied from 
Borrow's own version begun at Badajos in 1836. 

It is not strange that Borrow should be regarded with 
suspicion by the Spaniards on account of his association 
with the Gitanos. Sometimes there would be as many 
as seventeen gypsies gathered together at his lodgings in 
the Calle de Santiago. 

" The people in the street in which I lived," he writes, 3 
" seeing such numbers of these strange females continually 
passing in and out, were struck with astonishment, and 
demanded the reason. The answers which they obtained 
by no means satisfied them. ' Zeal for the conversion of 
souls — the souls too of Gitanas, — disparate ! the fellow is a 
scoundrel. Besides he is an Englishman, and is not 
baptised ; what cares he for souls ? They visit him for 
other purposes. He makes base ounces, which they carry 

1 The Gypsies of Spain, page 280. J Ibid. 3 Ibid., page 282. 



xiv.] "FIGHTING WITH WILD BEASTS" 219 

away and circulate. Madrid is already stocked with false 
money.' Others were of the opinion that we met for the 
purposes of sorcery and abomination. The Spaniard has 
no conception that other springs of action exist than 
interest or villany." 

Borrow was in reality endeavouring to convey to 
his "little congregation," as he called them, some idea 
of abstract morality. He was bold enough " to speak 
against their inveterate practices, thieving and lying, 
telling fortunes," etc., and at first experienced much 
opposition. About the result, he seems to have cherished 
no illusions ; still, he wrote a hymn in their dialect 
which he taught his guests to sing. 

For some time past it had been obvious to Borrow 
that he was becoming more than ever unpopular with 
certain interested factions in Madrid, who looked upon 
his missionary labours with angry disapproval. The 
opening of his DespacJio had caused a great sensation. 
" The Priests and Bigots are teeming with malice and 
fury," he had written to Mr Brandram, 1 "which hitherto 
they have thought proper to exhibit only in words, as they 
know that all I do here is favoured by Mr Villiers 2 
{sic). . . . There is no attempt, however atrocious, which 
may not be expected from such people, and were it right 
and seemly for me, the most insignificant of worms, to 
make such a comparison, I would say that, like Paul at 
Ephesus, I am fighting with wild beasts." He was attacked 
in print and endeavours were made to incite the people 
against him as a sorcerer and companion of gypsies and 
witches. When he decided upon the campaign of the 
posters it would appear, at first glance, that in the claims 
of the merchant Borrow had entirely forgotten the obliga- 
tions of the diplomatist. On the other hand, he may have 

1 On 25th December 1837. 

2 It is strange that Borrow should insist that he had Sir George 
Villiers' approval ; for Sir George himself has clearly stated that he 
strongly opposed the opening of the Despacho. 



220 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1838 

foreseen that the priestly party would soon force the 
Government to action, and was desirous of selling all the 
books he could before this happened. His own words 
seem to indicate that this was the case. 

" People who know me not," he wrote to Mr Brandram, 
" nor are acquainted with my situation, may be disposed 
to call me rash ; but I am far from being so, as I never 
adopt a venturous course when any other is open to me ; 
but I am not a person to be terrified by any danger 
when I see that braving it is the only way to achieve 
an object." 1 

Whatever may have been Borrow's motives, the crisis 
arrived on 12th January, when he received a peremptory 
order from the Civil Governor of Madrid (who had 
previously sent for and received two copies, to submit for 
examination to the Ecclesiastical Authorities) to sell no 
more of the New Testament in Spanish without notes. 
At that period the average sale was about twenty copies 
a day. " The priests have at length ' swooped upon me,' " 
Borrow wrote to Mr Brandram, three days later. The 
order did not, however, take him unawares. 

Borrow saw that little assistance was to be expected 
from Sir George VilHers, who, for obvious reasons, was 
not popular with the Ofalia ministry, and, accepting the 
British Minister's advice, he promptly complied with 
the edict. He recognised that for the time being his 
enemies were paramount. He accuses the priests of 
employing the ruffian who, one night in a dark street, 
warned him to discontinue selling his " Jewish books," or 
he would " have a knife ' nailed in his heart' " to which 
he replied by telling the fellow to go home, say his 
prayers and inform his employers that he, Borrow, pitied 
them. It was a few days after this episode that Borrow 
received the formal notice of prohibition. 

Consoling himself with the fact that he was not ordered 
to close his Despacho, and refusing the advice that was 
1 15th January 1838. 



xiv] AN ERROR OF TACTICS 221 

tendered to him to erase from its windows the yellow- 
lettered sign, he determined to continue his campaign 
with the Bibles that were on their way to him, and the 
Gitano and Basque versions of St Luke as soon as they 
were ready. The prohibition referred only to the Spanish 
New Testament without notes, and in this Borrow took 
comfort. He had every reason to feel gratified ; for, since 
opening the Despacho, he had sold nearly three hundred 
copies of the New Testament. 

At Earl Street it was undoubtedly felt that Borrow 
had to some extent precipitated the present crisis. On 
8th February Mr Brandram wrote that, whilst there was 
no wish on the part of the Committee to censure him, 
they were not altogether surprised at what had occurred ; 
for, when they first heard about them, " some did think 
that your tri-coloured placards and placard-bearer were 
somewhat calculated to provoke what has occurred." In 
reply Borrow confessed that the view of the "some" 
gave him " a pang, more especially as I knew from un- 
doubted sources that nothing which / had done, said, or 
written, was the original cause of the arbitrary step which 
had been adopted in respect to me." l 

The printing of the Gitano and Basque editions of St 
Luke (500 copies 2 of each) was completed in March, and 
they were published respectively in March and April. 
The Gitano version attracted much attention. Some 
months later Borrow wrote : — 

" No work printed in Spain ever caused so great and 
so general a sensation, not so much amongst the 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th March 1838. 

2 In The Gypsies of Spain Borrow gives the number as 500 (page 
281) ; but the Resolution, confirmed 20th March 1837, authorised the 
printing of 250 copies only. In all probability the figures given by 
Borrow are correct, as in a letter to Mr Brandram, dated 18th July 
1839, he gives his unsold stock of books at Madrid as : — 

Of Testaments ..... 962 

Of Gospels in the Gypsy Tongue . . . 286 

Of ditto in Basque .... 394 



222 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1838 

Gypsies, that peculiar people for whom it was intended, 
as amongst the Spaniards themselves, who, though they 
look upon the Roma with some degree of contempt as a 
low and thievish race of outcasts, nevertheless take a 
strange interest in all that concerns them, it having been 
from time immemorial their practice, more especially of 
the dissolute young nobility, to cultivate the acquaintance 
of the Gitanos, as they are popularly called, probably 
attracted by the wild wit of the latter and the lascivious 
dances of the females. The apparation, therefore, of the 
Gospel of St Luke at Madrid in the peculiar jargon of 
these people, was hailed as a strange novelty and almost 
as a wonder, and I believe was particularly instrumental 
in bruiting the name of the Bible Society far and wide 
through Spain, and in creating a feeling far from inimical 
towards it and its proceedings." * 

The little volume appears to have sold freely among 
the gypsies. " Many of the men," Borrow says, 2 " under- 
stood it, and prized it highly, induced of course more by 
the language than the doctrine ; the women were particu- 
larly anxious to obtain copies, though unable to read ; but 
each wished to have one in her pocket, especially when 
engaged in thieving expeditions, for they all looked upon 
it in the light of a charm." 

All endeavours to get the prohibition against the 
sale of the New Testament removed proved unavailing. 
Borrow's great strength lay in the support he received 
from the British Minister, and, in all probability, this 
prevented his expulsion from Spain, which alone would 
have satisfied his enemies. At the request of Sir 
George Villiers, he drew up an account of the Bible 
Society and an exposition of its views, telling Count 
Ofalia, among other things, that " the mightiest of earthly 
monarchs, the late Alexander of Russia, was so convinced 
of the single-mindedness and integrity of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, that he promoted their efforts 
within his own dominions to the utmost of his ability." 

1 Original Report, withdrawn. 

2 The Gypsies of Spain, pages 280-1. 



xiv] BORROW CALLS ON COUNT OFALIA 223 

He pointed to the condition of Spain, which was " over- 
spread with the thickest gloom of heathenish ignorance, 
beneath which the fiends and demons of the abyss seem 
to be holding their ghastly revels." He described it as " a 
country in which all sense of right and wrong is forgotten 
. . . where the name of Jesus is scarcely ever mentioned 
but in blasphemy, and His precepts [are] almost utterly 
unknown . . . [where] the few who are enlightened are too 
much occupied in the pursuit of lucre, ambition, or ungodly 
revenge to entertain a desire or thought of bettering the 
moral state of their countrymen." This report, in which 
Borrow confesses that he " made no attempts to flatter and 
cajole," must have caused the British Minister some 
diplomatic embarrassment when he read it ; but it seems 
to have been presented, although, as is scarcely surprising, 
it appears to have been ineffectual in causing to be 
removed the ban against which it was written as a 
protest. 

The Prime Minister was in a peculiarly unpleasant 
position. On the one hand there was the British Minister 
using all his influence to get the prohibition rescinded ; on 
the other hand were six bishops, including the primate, 
then resident in Madrid, and the greater part of the clergy. 
Count Ofalia applied for a copy of the Gipsy St Luke, 
and, seeing in this an opening for a personal appeal, 
Borrow determined to present the volume, specially and 
handsomely bound, in person, probably the last thing that 
Count Ofalia expected or desired. The interview pro- 
duced nothing beyond the conviction in Borrow's mind 
that Spain was ruled by a man who possessed the soul of 
a mouse. Borrow had been received "with great 
affability," thanked for his present, urged to be patient 
and peaceable, assured of the enmity of the clergy, and 
promised that an endeavour should be made to devise some 
plan that would be satisfactory to him. The two then 
"parted in kindness," and as he walked away from the 
palace, Borrow wondered " by what strange chance this 



224 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1838 

poor man had become Prime Minister of a country like 
Spain." 

In reporting progress to the Bible Society on 17th 
March Borrow, after assuring Mr Brandram that he had 
" brought every engine into play which it was in my 
power to command," asked for instructions. " Shall I 
wait a little time longer in Madrid," he enquired ; " or shall 
I proceed at once on a journey to Andalusia and other 
places ? I am in strength, health and spirits, thanks be to 
the Lord ! and am at all times ready to devote myself, 
body and mind, to His cause." The decision of the 
Committee was that he should remain at Madrid. 

During the time that Borrow had been preparing his 
Depot in Madrid, Lieutenant Graydon had been feverishly 
active in the South. On 19th April Borrow wrote to Mr 
Brandram : — 

" Sir George Villiers has vowed to protect me and has 
stated so publicly. . . . He has gone so far as to state to 
Ofalia and [Don Ramon de] Gamboa [the Civil Governor], 
that provided I be allowed to pursue my plans without 
interruption, he will be my bail {fiador) and answerable 
for everything I do, as he does me the honor to say that 
he knows me, and can confide in my discretion." 

In the same letter he begs the Society to be cautious 
and offer no encouragement to any disposed " ' to run the 
muck ' {sic) (it is Sir George's expression) against the 
religious and political institutions of Spain " ; but " the 
delicacy of the situation does not appear to have been 
thoroughly understood at the time even by the Committee 
at home." 2 They saw the astonishing success of Graydon 
in distributing the Scripture, and became infused with his 
enthusiasm, oblivious to the fact that the greater the 
enthusiasm the greater the possibilities of indiscretion. 
On the other hand Graydon himself saw only the glory of 

1 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th March 1838. 

2 The History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, by W. 
Canton. 



xtv] A RECKLESS EVANGELIST 225 

the Gospel. If he were indiscreet, it was because he was 
blinded by the success that attended his efforts, and he 
failed to see the clouds that were gathering. 1 Borrow saw 
the danger of Graydon's reckless evangelism, and although 
he himself had few good words for the pope and priestcraft, 
he recognised that a discreet veiling of his opinions was 
best calculated to further the ends he had in view. 

About this period Borrow became greatly incensed at 
the action of the Rev. W. H. Rule of Gibraltar in consign- 
ing to his care an ex-priest, Don Pascual Marin, who, it 
was alleged, had been persuaded to secede from Rome 
" by certain promises and hopes held out " to him. He had 
accordingly left his benefice and gone to Gibraltar to 
receive instruction at the hands of Mr Rule. On his return 
to Valencia his salary was naturally sequestrated, and he 
was reduced to want. When he arrived at Madrid it was 
with a letter (12th April) from Mr Rule to Borrow, in 
which it was stated that Marin was sent that he might 
" endeavour to circulate the Holy Scriptures, Religious 
Tracts and books, and if possible prepare the minds of 
some with a view to the future establishment of a Mission 
in Madrid." 

Borrow had commiserated with the unfortunate Marin, 
even to the extent of sending him 500 reals out of his own 
pocket ; but on hearing that he was on his way to Madrid 
to engage in missionary work, he immediately wrote a 
letter of protest to Mr Brandram. He was angry at Mr 
Rule's conduct in saddling him with Marin, and that 
without any preliminary correspondence. He had enter- 

1 Mr Canton writes in The History of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society : " His [Graydon's] opportunity was indeed unprecedented ; 
and had he but more accurately appreciated the unstable political 
conditions of the country, the susceptibilities, suspicious and precari- 
ous tenure of ministers and placemen, the temper of the priesthood, 
their sensitive attachment to certain tenets of their faith, and their 
enormous influence over the civil power, there is reason to believe 
that he might have brought his mission to a happier and more 
permanent issue." 

P 



226 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1838 

tained Mr Rule when in Madrid, had conversed with him 
about the unfortunate ex-priest ; but there had never been 
any mention of his being sent to Madrid. Mr Rule, on 
the other hand, thought it had been arranged that Marin 
should be sent to Borrow. The whole affair appears to 
have arisen out of a misunderstanding. There was con- 
siderable danger to Borrow in Marin's presence in the 
capital ; but it was not the thought of the danger that 
incensed him so much as what he conceived to be Mr 
Rule's unwarrantable conduct, and his own deeply-rooted 
objection to working with anyone else. Mr Brandram 
repudiated the suggestion that assistance had been 
promised Marin from London (although he authorised 
Borrow to give him ten pounds in his, Brandram's, name), 
and gave as an excuse for what Borrow described as the 
desertion of the ex-priest by those who were responsible 
for his conversion, that " the man had returned of his own 
accord to Rome," Graydon vouching for the accuracy of 
the statement. 

On the other hand, Marin stated that he was persuaded 
to secede by promises made by Graydon and Rule, and 
induced to sign a document purporting to be a separation 
from the Roman Church. He further stated that he was 
abandoned because he refused to preach publicly against 
the Chapter of Valencia, which in all probability would 
have resulted in his imprisonment. Whatever the truth, 
there appears to have been some embarrassment among 
those responsible for bringing in the lost sheep as to what 
should be done with him. " I hope that Marin's history 
will be a warning to many of our friends," Borrow wrote to 
Mr Rule and quoted the passage in his letter to Mr 
Brandram, 1 " and tend to a certain extent to sober down 
the desire for doing what is called at home smart things, 
many of which terminate in a manner very different from 
the original expectations of the parties concerned." Mr 
Brandram thought that Borrow was a little hard upon 
1 [nth] May 1838. 



xiv.] THE MARIN EPISODE 227 

Graydon, and that he had not received " with the due 
grano salis the statements of the unfortunate M." He 
intimated, nevertheless, that the Committee had no opening 
for Marin's services. 

That Borrow was justified in his anger is shown by the 
fact that, as he had foreseen, he reaped all the odium of 
Marin's conversion. The Bishop of Cordoba in Council 
branded him as " a dangerous, pestilent person, who under 
the pretence of selling the Scriptures went about making 
converts, and moreover employed subordinates for the 
purpose of deluding weak and silly people into separation 
from the Mother Church." l 

Although Borrow was angry about the Marin episode, 
he did not allow his personal feelings to prevent him from 
ministering to the needs of the poor ex-priest " as far as 
prudence will allow," when he fell ill. He even went the 
length of writing to Mr Rule, being wishful " not to offend 
him." None the less he felt that he had not been well 
treated. To Mr Brandram he wrote reminding him " that 
all the difficulty and danger connected with what has been 
accomplished in Spain have fallen to my share, I having 
been labouring on the flinty rock and sierra, and not in 
smiling meadows refreshed by sea breezes." 2 

On 14th July 1838 Borrow made the last reference 
to the ex-priest in a letter to Mr Brandram : " The 
unfortunate M. is dying of a galloping consumption, 
brought on by distress of mind. All the medicine in the 
world would not accomplish his cure." 3 

The watchful eye of the law was still on Borrow, and 
fearful lest his stock of Bibles, of which 500 had arrived 

1 Letter from George Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram [nth] May 1838. 

2 23rd April 1838. 

3 The Marin episode is amazing. The object of distributing the 
Scriptures was to enlighten men's minds and bring about conversion, 
and a priest was a distinct capture, more valuable by far than a 
peasant, and likely to influence others ; yet when they had got him 
no one appears to have known exactly what to do, and all were 
anxious to get rid of him again. 



228 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1838 

from Barcelona, and the Gypsy and Basque editions of 
St Luke should be seized, he hired a room where he stored 
the bulk of the books. He now advertised the two editions 
of St Luke, with the result that on 16th April a party of 
Alguazils entered the shop and took possession of twenty- 
five copies of the Romany Gospel of St Luke. 

On the publication of the Gypsy St Luke, a fresh 
campaign had been opened against Borrow, and accusa- 
tions of sorcery were made and fears expressed as to the 
results of the publication of the book. Application was 
made by the priestly party to the Civil Governor, with the 
result that all the copies at the Despaclio of the Basque and 
Gitano versions of St Luke had been seized. Borrow 
states that the Alguazils "divided the copies of the gypsy 
volume among themselves, selling subsequently the greater 
number at a large price, the book being in the greatest 
demand." 1 Thus the very officials responsible for the 
seizure and suppression of the Bible Society's books in Spain 
became "unintentionally agents of an heretical society." 2 

Disappointed at the smallness of the spoil, the 
authorities strove by artifice to discover if Borrow still had 
copies of the books in his possession. To this end they 
sent to the Despaclio spies, who offered high prices for 
copies of the Gitano St Luke, in which their interest 
seemed specially to centre, to the exclusion of the Basque 
version. To these enquiries the same answer was returned, 
that at present no further books would be sold at the 
Despaclio. 

As evidence of the high opinion formed of the Romany 
version of St Luke, the following story told by Borrow is 
amusing : — 

" Shortly before my departure a royal edict was pub- 
lished, authorising all public libraries to provide themselves 
with copies of the said works [the Basque and Gypsy St 
Lukes] on account of their philological merit ; whereupon 
on application being made to the Office [of the Civil 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 536. ~ Ibid. 



xiv.] A PHILOLOGICAL CURIOSITY 229 

Governor, where the books were supposed to be stored], 
it was discovered that the copies of the Gospel in Basque 
were safe and forthcoming, whilst every one of the 
sequestered copies of the Gitano Gospel had been plundered 
by hands unknown [to the authorities]. The consequence 
was that I was myself applied to by the agents of the public 
libraries of Valencia and other places, who paid me the 
price of the copies which they received, assuring me at the 
same time that they were authorised to purchase them at 
whatever price which might be demanded." * 

Borrow's enemies acknowledged that the Gitano St 
Luke was a philological curiosity ; but that it was impos- 
sible to allow it to pass into circulation without notes. 
How great a philological curiosity it actually was, is shown 
by the fact that the ecclesiastical authorities were unable 
to find anywhere a person, in whom they had confidence, 
capable of pronouncing upon it, consequently they could 
only condemn it on two counts of omission ; firstly the 
notes, secondly the imprint of the printer from the title-page. 

The Basque version was by no means so popular ; for 
one thing, " It can scarcely be said to have been published," 
Borrow wrote, " it having been prohibited, and copies of it 
seized on the second day of its appearance." 2 Several 
orders were received from San Sebastian and other towns 
where Basque predominates, which could not be supplied 
on account of the prohibition. 

The official remonstrance from Sir George Villiers to 
Count Ofalia in respect of the seizure of the Gypsy and 
Basque Gospels is of great interest as showing, not only 
the British Minister's attitude towards Borrow, but how, 
and with what wrath, Borrow " desisted from his meritorious 
task." The communication runs : — 

Madrid, 2\th April 1838. 
Sir, 

It is my duty to request the attention of Your 
Excellency to an act of injustice committed against a 
British subject by the Civil Authorities of Madrid. 

1 Original Report, withdrawn. a Original Report, withdrawn. 



230 THE AUTHORITIES INTERVENE [1838 

It appears that on the 16th inst, two officers of Police 
were sent by the Civil Governor to a Shop, No. 25 Calle del 
Principe occupied by Mr Borrow, where they seized and 
carried away 25 Copies of the Gospel of St Luke in the 
Gitano language, being the entire number exposed there 
for sale. 

Mr Borrow is an agent of the British Bible Society, 
who has for some time past been in Spain, and in the year 
1836 obtained permission from the Government of Her 
Catholic Majesty to print, at the expense of the Society, 
Padre Scio's translation of the New Testament. He 
subsequently sold the work at a moderate price and had 
no reason to believe that in so doing he infringed any law 
of Spain or exposed himself to the animadversion of the 
Authorities, otherwise, from my knowledge of Mr Borrow's 
character, I feel justified in assuring Your Excellency that 
he would at once, although with regret, have desisted from 
his meritorious task of propagating the Gospel. Some 
months ago, however, the late Civil Governor of Madrid, 
after having sent for and examined a copy of the work, 
thought proper to direct that its further sale should be 
suspended, which order was instantly complied with. 

Mr Borrow is a man of great learning and research and 
master of many languages, and having translated the 
Gospel of St Luke into the Gitano, he presented a copy of 
it to Don Ramon Gamboa, the late Civil Governor, and 
announced his intention to advertise it for sale, to which no 
objection was made. 

Since that time neither Mr Borrow nor the persons 
employed by him received any communication from the 
present Civil Governor forbidding the sale of this work 
until it was seized in the manner I have above described to 
Your Excellency. 

I feel convinced that the mere statement of these facts 
without any commentary on my part will be sufficient to 
induce your Excellency to take steps for the indemnifica- 
tion of Mr Borrow, who is not only a very respectable 
British subject but the Agent of one of the most truly 
benevolent and philanthropic Societies in the world. 

I have, etc., etc., etc. 

George Villiers. 
His Excellency Count Ofalia. 



CHAPTER XV 

MAY I-I3, 1838 

f~\ N the morning of 30th April, whilst at breakfast, 
^^ Borrow, according to his own account, received a 
visit from a man who announced that he was " A Police 
Agent." He came from the Civil Governor, who was 
perfectly aware that he, Borrow, was continuing in secret 
to dispose of the " evil books " that he had been forbidden 
to sell. The man began poking round among the books 
and papers that were lying about, with the result that 
Borrow led his visitor by the arm down the three 
flights of stairs into the street, " looking him steadfastly 
in the face the whole time," and subsequently sending 
down by his landlady the official's sombrero, which, in the 
unexpectedness of his departure, he had left behind him. 

The official report of Pedro Martin de Eugenio, the 
police agent in question, runs as follows : — 

Madrid, 30^ April 1838. 

Official Report of the Police Agent of 
the language held by mr borrow. 

Public Security. — In virtue of an order from His 
Excellency the Civil Governor, 1 I went to seize the Copies 
Entitled the Gospel of St Luke, in the Shop Princes Street 

1 Sometimes this personage is referred to in official papers as the 
"Political Chief," a too literal translation of Gefe Politico. In all 
cases it has been altered to Civil Governor to preserve uniformity. 
Many of the official translations of Foreign Office papers can only be 
described as grotesque. 

231 



232 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

No. 25, belonging to Mr George Borrow, but not finding 
him there; I went to his lodgings, which are in St James 
Street, No. 16, on the third floor and presenting the said 
order to Him He read it, and with an angry look threw it 
on the ground saying, that He had nothing to do with the 
Civil Governor, that He was authorised by His Ambassador 
to sell the Work in question, and that an English Stable 
Boy, is more than any Spanish Civil Governor, and that I 
had forcibly entered his house, to which I replied that I 
only went there to communicate the order to Him, as 
proprietor as he was of the said Shop, and to seize the 
Copies in it in virtue of that Order, and He answered I 
might do as I liked, that He should go to the House of His 
Ambassador, and that I should be responsible for the 
consequences ; to which I replied that He had personally 
insulted the Civil Governor and all Spain, to which He 
answered in the same terms, holding the same language 
as above stated. 

All of which I communicate to you for the objects 
required. Th£ p OLICE Agent 

Pedro Martin de Eugenic 1 

Borrow felt that the fellow had been sent to entrap 
him into some utterance that should justify his arrest. In 
any case a warrant was issued that same morning. The 
news caused Borrow no alarm ; for one thing he was 
indifferent to danger, for another he was desirous of 
studying the robber language of Spain, and had already, 
according to his own statement, 2 made an unsuccessful 
effort to obtain admission to the city prison. 

The official account of the interview between Borrow 
and the " Police Agent " is given in the following letter 
from the Civil Governor to Sir George Villiers : — 

To the British Minister, — 

Madrid, yzth April 1838. 
Sir, 

The Vicar of the Diocese having, on the 16th and 
26th Instant, officially represented to me, that neither the 

1 This is the official translation among the Foreign Office papers 
at the Record Office. 2 The Bible in Spain, page 539. 



xv.] THE CIVIL GOVERNOR EXPLAINS 233 

publication nor the sale of the Gospel of St Luke translated 
into the romain, or Gitano Dialect ought to be permitted, 
until such time as the translation had been examined and 
approved by the competent Ecclesiastical Authority, in 
conformity with the Canonical and Civil regulations 
existing on the matter, I gave an order to a dependent of 
this civil administration, to present himself in the house of 
Mr George Borrow, a British Subject, charged by the 
London Bible Society with the publication of this work, 
and to seize all the Copies of it. In execution of this 
order my Warrant was yesterday morning 1 presented to 
the said Mr George Borrow ; who, so far from obeying 
it, broke out in insults most offensive to my authority, 
threw the order on the ground with angry gestures, and 
grossly abused the bearer of it, and said that he had 
nothing to do with the Civil Governor. The detailed 
report in writing which has been made to me of this 
disageeeable occurrence could not but deeply affect me, 
being a question of a British Subject, to whom the 
Government of Her Catholic Majesty has always afforded 
the same protection as to its own. As Executor of the 
Law it is my duty to cause its decrees to be inviolably 
observed ; and you will well understand, that both the 
Canonical as the Civil Laws now existing, in this kingdom, 
relative to writings and works published upon Dogmas, 
Morals, and holy and religious matters, are the same 
without distinction for the Subjects of all Countries 
residing in Spain. No one can be permitted to violate 
them with impunity, without detriment to the Laws 
themselves, to the Royal Authority and to the Evangelical 
Moral which is highly interested in preventing the pro- 
pagation of doctrines which may be erroneous, and that 
the purity of the sublime maxims of our divine Faith 
should remain intact. 

In conformity with these undeniable principles, which 
are in the Laws of all civilised nations, you must acknow- 
ledge that the offensive conduct of Mr George Borrow, and 
his disobedience to a legitimate Authority sufficiently 
authorised the proceeding to his arrest. . . . 
I have, etc., etc. 

Deigo de Entrena. 

1 There is an error in the dating of this letter. It should be 
ist May. 



234 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

The " Police Agent " seems to have boasted that 
within twenty-four hours Borrow would be in prison ; 
Borrow, on the other hand, determined to prove the 
" Police Agent " wrong. He therefore spent the rest of 
the day and the following night at a cafe. 1 In the evening- 
he received a visit from Maria Diaz, 2 his landlady and also 
his strong adherent and friend, whom he had informed of 
his whereabouts. From her he learned that his lodgings 
had been searched and that the alguazils, who bore a 
warrant for his arrest, were much disappointed at not 
finding him. 

The next morning, ist May, at the request of Sir 
George Villiers, Borrow called at the Embassy and 
narrated every circumstance of the affair, with the result 
that he was offered the hospitality of the Embassy, which 
he declined. Whilst in conversation with Mr Sothern, Sir 
George Villiers' private secretary, Borrow's Basque servant 
Francisco rushed in with the news that the alguazils were 
again at his rooms searching among his papers, whereat 
Borrow at once left the Embassy, determined to return 
to his lodgings. Immediately afterwards he was arrested, 3 
within sight of the doors of the Embassy, and conducted 
to the office of the Civil Governor. Francisco in the 
meantime, acting on his master's instructions, conveyed 

1 In a letter to Count Ofalia, Sir George Villiers states that 
" George Borrow, fearing violence, prudently abstained from going to 
his ordinary place of abode." 

2 Borrow pays a magnificent and well-deserved tribute to this 
queen among landladies. {The Bible in Spain, pages 256-7.) She 
was always his friend and frequently his counsellor, thinking nothing 
of the risk she ran in standing by him during periods of danger. 
She refused all inducements to betray him to his enemies, and, 
thoroughly deserved the eulogy that Borrow pronounced upon her. 

:! It was subsequently stated that the arrest was ordered because 
Borrow had refused to recognise the Civil Governor's authority and 
made use "of offensive expressions" towards his person. The 
Civil Governor had no authority over British subjects, and Borrow 
was right in his refusal to acknowledge his jurisdiction. 



xv.] THE ARREST 235 

to him in Basque that the alguazils might not understand, 
proceeded immediately to the British Embassy and in- 
formed Sir George Villiers of what had just taken place, 
with such eloquence and feeling that Mr Sothern after- 
wards remarked to Borrow, " That Basque of yours is 
a noble fellow," and asked to be given the refusal of 
his services should Borrow ever decide to part with him. 
With his dependents Borrow was always extremely 
popular, even in Spain, where, according to Mr Sothern, 
a man's servant seemed to be his worst enemy. 

Borrow submitted quietly to his arrest and was first 
taken to the office of the Civil Governor {Gefatura 
Politico), and subsequently to the Carcel de la Corte, by 
two Salvaguardias, " like a common malefactor." Here 
he was assigned a chamber that was " large and lofty, 
but totally destitute of every species of furniture with the 
exception of a huge wooden pitcher, intended to hold my 
daily allowance of water." 1 For this special accommodation 
Borrow was to pay, otherwise he would have been herded 
with the common criminals, who existed in a state of foul- 
ness and misery. Acting on the advice of the Alcaydc, 
Borrow despatched a note to Maria Diaz, with the result 
that when Mr Sothern arrived, he found the prisoner not 
only surrounded by his friends and furniture, but enjoying 
a comfortable meal, whereat he laughed heartily. 

Borrow learned that, immediately on hearing what 
had taken place, Sir George Villiers had despatched Mr 
Sothern to interview Senor Entrena, the Civil Governor, 
who rudely referred him to his secretary, and refused to 
hold any communication with the British Legation save 
in writing. Nothing further could be done that night, 
and on hearing that Borrow was determined to remain 
in durance, even if offered his liberty, now that he 
had been illegally placed there, Mr Sothern commended 
his resolution. The Government had put itself grievously 
in the wrong, and Sir George, who had already sent a 
1 77/i? Bible in Spain, page 547. 



236 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

note to Count Ofalia demanding redress, seemed desirous 
of making it as difficult for them as possible, now that 
they had perpetrated this wanton outrage on a British 
subject. He determined to make it a national affair. 

It is by no means certain that Borrow was anxious 
to leave the Carcel de la Corte> even with the apologies 
of Spain in his pocket. The prison afforded him unique 
opportunities for the study of criminal vagabonds. An 
entirely new phase of life presented itself to him, and. 
but for this arrest and his subsequent decision to involve 
the authorities in difficulties, The Bible in Spain would 
have lacked some of its most picturesque pages. It would 
have been strange if he had not encountered some old 
friend or acquaintance in the prison of the Spanish capital. 
At the Carcel de la Corte he found the notorious and 
immense Gitana, Aurora, who had fallen into the hands 
of the Busn/ for defrauding a rather foolish widow. 

" A great many people came to see me," Borrow wrote 
to his mother, " amongst others, General Quiroga, the 
Military Governor, who assured me that all he possessed 
was at my service. The Gypsies likewise came, but were 
refused admittance." His dinner was taken to him from 
an inn, and Sir George Villiers sent his butler each day 
to make enquiries. There was, however, one very 
unpleasant feature of his prison life, the verminous con- 
dition of the whole building. In spite of having fresh 
linen taken to him each day, he suffered very much from 
what the polished Spaniard prefers to call miseria. 

Sir George Villiers took active and immediate steps, 
not only to secure Borrow's release, but to obtain an 
unqualified apology. Referring to the letter he had 
received from the Civil Governor (30th April), he 
expressed himself as convinced that " a gentleman of 
Borrow's character and education was incapable of the 
conduct alleged," and had accordingly requested Mr 
Sothern to enquire into the matter and then to call 
upon the Civil Governor to explain in what manner he 



xv.] A GRAVE SITUATION 237 

had been misinformed. As the Civil Governor refused to 
receive Mr Sothern, Sir George adds that he need trouble 
him no further, as the affair had been placed before Her 
Catholic Majesty's Government ; but during his five 
years of office at the Court of Madrid, he proceeded, 
" no circumstance has occurred likely to be more pre- 
judicial to the relations between the two Countries than 
the insult and imprisonment to which a respectable 
Englishman has now been subjected upon the unsupported 
evidence of a Police Officer," acting under the orders of 
the Civil Governor. 

On 3rd May Sir George Villiers' wrote again to 
Count Ofalia, reminding him that he had not received 
the letter from him that he had expected. In the course 
of a lengthy recapitulation of the occurrences of the past 
ten days, Sir George reminded Count Ofalia that, as 
a result of their interview on 30th April about the ill- 
usage of Borrow, the Count had written on 1st May to 
him a private letter stating that measures had been taken 
to release Borrow on parole, he to appear when necessary, 
and that if Sir George would abstain from making a 
written remonstrance, Count Ofalia would see that both 
he and Borrow received the ample satisfaction to which 
they were entitled. Borrow had been taken by two 
Guards " like a Malefactor, to the Common Prison, where 
he would have been confined with Criminals of every 
description if he had not had money to pay for a Cell 
to Himself." The British Minister complained that every 
step that he had taken for Borrow's protection was 
followed by fresh insult, and he further intimated that 
Borrow refused to leave the prison until his character had 
been publicly cleared. 

The Spanish Government now found itself in a 
quandary. The British Minister was pressing for satisfac- 
tion, and he was too powerful and too important to the 
needs of Spain to be offended. The prisoner himself 
refused to be liberated, because he had been illegally 



238 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

arrested, inasmuch as he, a foreigner, had been committed 
to prison without first being conducted before the Captain- 
General of Madrid, as the law provided. Furthermore, 
Borrow advised the authorities that if they chose to eject 
him from the prison he would resist with all his bodily 
strength. In this determination he was confirmed by the 
British Minister. 

A Cabinet Council was held, at which Senor Entrena 
was present. The Premier explained the serious situation 
in which the ministry found itself, owing to the attitude 
assumed by the British Minister, and he remarked that 
the Civil Governor must respect the privileges of 
foreigners. Senor Entrena suggested that he should be 
relieved of his duties ; but the majority of the Cabinet 
seems to have been favourable to him. The Affaire 
Borrow is said to have come up for debate even during a 
secret session of the Chamber. 

When Count Ofalia had called at the British Embassy 
(4th May) he was informed by Sir George Villiers that the 
affair had passed beyond the radius of a subordinate 
authority of the Government, and that he "considered 
that great want of respect had been shown to me, as Her 
Majesty's Minister, and that an unjustifiable outrage had 
been committed upon a British Subject," 1 and that the 
least reparation that he was disposed to accept was a 
written declaration that an injustice had been done, and 
the dismissal of the Police Officer. 2 

The value of a British subject's freedom was brought 
home to the Spanish Government with astonishing swift- 
ness and decision. The Civil Governor wrote to Sir 
George Villiers (3rd May), apparently at the instance of 
the distraught premier, discoursing sagely upon the 
Civil and Canon Laws of Spain, and adding that the 25 
copies of the Gitano St Luke were seized, " not as being 

1 Dispatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 
5th May. 

2 Ibid. 



xv.] THE AFFAIRE BORROW 239 

confiscated, but as a deposit to be restored in due time." 
He concluded by hoping that he had convinced the 
British Minister of his good faith. 

In his reply, Sir George considered that the Civil 
Governor had been led to view the matter in a light that 
would not " bear the test of impartial examination." The 
result of this interchange of letters was twofold. Sir 
George dropped the correspondence with "that Func- 
tionary [who] displays so complete a disregard for fact," ] 
and as Count Ofalia evaded the real question at issue, 
holding out " slender hopes of the matter ending in the 
reparation which I considered to be peremptorily called 
for," 2 he advised Borrow to claim protection from the 
Captain-General, the only authority competent to exercise 
any jurisdiction over him. The Captain-General Quiroga, 
jealous of his authority, entered warmly into the dispute 
and ordered the Civil Governor to hand over the case to 
him. There was now a danger of the Affaire Borrow 
being made a party question, in which case it would have 
been extremely difficult to settle. 

The intervention of the Captain-General rendered all 
the more obvious the illegality of the Civil Governor's 
action, and increased the embarrassment of Count Ofalia, 
who called on Sir George to ask him to have Borrow's 
memorial to the Captain-General withdrawn. He refused, 
and said the only way now to finish the affair was that 
" His Excellency should in an official Note declare to me 
that Mr Borrow left the prison, where he had been 
improperly placed, with unstained honour, — that the 
Police Agent, upon whose testimony he had been arrested, 
should be dismissed, — that all expenses imposed upon 
Mr Borrow by his detention should be repaid him by the 
Government, — that Mr Borrow's not having availed 
himself of the ' Fuero Militar ' should not be converted 

1 Despatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 
1 2th May 1838. 
- Ibid. 



240 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

into a precedent, or in any way be considered to prejudice 
that important right, and that Count Ofalia should add 
with reference to maintaining the friendly relations 
between Great Britain and Spain, that he hoped I would 
accept this satisfaction as sufficient." * 

Borrow states that Sir George Villiers went to the 
length of informing Count Ofalia that unless full satisfac- 
tion were accorded Borrow, he would demand his passports 
and instruct the commanders of the British war vessels 
to desist from furnishing further assistance to Spain. 2 
There is, however, no record of this in the official papers 
sent by Sir George to the Foreign Office. What actually 
occurred was that, on 8th May, the British Minister, 
determined to brook no further delay, wrote a grave official 
remonstrance, in which he stated that, " if the desire 
had existed to bring it to a close," the case of Borrow 
could have been settled. " Having up to the present 
moment," he proceeds, "trusted that in Your Excellency's 
hands, this affair would be treated with all that considera- 
tion required by its nature and the consequences that 
may follow upon it. ... I have forborne from denouncing 
the whole extent of the illegality which has marked the 
proceedings of the case " (viz., the Civil Governor's having 
usurped the right of the Captain-General of the Province 
in causing Borrow's arrest). In conclusion, Sir George 
states that he considers the 

" case of most pressing importance, for it may com- 
promise the relations now existing between Great 
Britain and Spain. It is one that requires a complete 
satisfaction, for the honor of England and the future 
position of Englishmen in the Country are concerned ; 
and the satisfaction, in order to be complete, required to 
be promptly given." 

" This disagreeable business," Sir George writes in 
another of his despatches, " is rendered yet more so 
by the impossibility of defending with success all 

1 Despatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th May 183s. 



xv.] AN OBJECT OF SUSPICION 241 

Mr Borrow's proceedings. . . . His imprudent zeal likewise 
in announcing publicly that the Bible Society had a 
depot of Bibles in Madrid, and that he was the Agent 
for their sale, irritated the Ecclesiastical Authorities, 
whose attention has of late been called to the proceedings 
of a Mr Graydon, — another agent of the Bible Society, 
who has created great excitement at Malaga (and I 
believe in other places) by publishing in the Newspapers 
that the Catholic Religion was not the religion of God, 
and that he had been sent from England to convert 
Spaniards to Protestantism. I have upon more than one 
occasion cautioned Mr Graydon, but in vain, to be more 
prudent. The Methodist Society of England is likewise 
endeavouring to establish a School at Cadiz, and by that 
means to make conversions. 

" Under all these circumstances it is not perhaps 
surprising that the Archbishop of Toledo and the Heads 
of the Church should be alarmed that an attempt at 
Protestant Propagandism is about to be made, or that 
the Government should wish to avert the evils of religious 
schism in addition to all those which already weigh upon 
the Country ; and to these different causes it must, in some 
degree, be attributed that Mr Borrow has been an object 
of suspicion and treated with such extreme rigor. Still, 
however, they do not justify the course pursued by the 
Civil Governor towards him, or by the Government 
towards myself, and I trust Your Lordship will consider 
that in the steps I have taken upon the matter, I have done 
no more than what the National honor, and the security of 
Englishmen in this Country, rendered obligatory upon me." 1 

Whilst Borrow was in the Carcel de la Corte, a grave 
complication had arisen in connection with the misguided 
Lieutenant Graydon. Borrow gives a strikingly dramatic 
account 2 of Count Ofalia's call at the British Embassy. 
He is represented as arriving with a copy of one of Gray- 
don's bills, which he threw down upon a table calling upon 
Sir George Villiers to read it and, as a gentleman and the 
representative of a great and enlightened nation, tell him if 

1 Despatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 5th 
May 1838. 

- In a letter to the Rev. A. Brandram, 17th May 1838. 

Q 



242 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

he could any longer defend Borrow and say that he had been 
ill or unfairly treated. According to the Foreign Office 
documents, Count Ofalia wrote to Sir George Villiers on 
5 th May, enclosing a copy of an advertisement inserted by 
Lieutenant Gray don in the Bolctin Oficialde Malaga, which, 
translated, runs as follows : — 

" The Individual in question most earnestly calls the 
greatest attention of each member of the great Spanish 
Family to this divine Book, in order that tlirougJi it he 
may learn the chief cause, if not the sole one, of all his 
terrible afflictions and of his only remedy, as it is so clearly 
manifested in the Holy Scripture. ... A detestable 
system of superstition and fanaticism, only greedy for money, 
and not so either of the temporal or eternal felicity of man, 
has prevailed in Spain (as also in other Nations) during 
several Centuries, by the absolute exclusion of the true 
knowledge of the Great God and last Judge of Mankind : 
and thus it has been plunged into the most frightful 
calamities. There was a time in which precisely the same 
was read in the then very little Kingdom of England, but 
at length Her Sons recognising their imperative Duty 
towards God and their Neighbour, as also their unquestion- 
able rights, and that since the world exists it has never 
been possible to gather grapes from thorns, or figs from 
thistles, they destroyed the system and at the price of their 
blood chose the Bible. Oh that the unprejudiced and 
enlightened inhabitants not only of Malaga and of so 
many other Cities, but of all Spain, would follow so good 
an example." 1 

The result of Graydon's advertisement was that " the 
people flocked in crowds to purchase it [the Bible], so much 
so that 200 copies, all that were in Mr Graydon's 
possession at the time, were sold in the course of the day. 
The Bishop sent the Fiscal to stop the sale of the work, 
but before the necessary measures were taken they were 
all disposed of." 2 In consequence Graydon "was detained 

1 The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at the 
Record Office. 

2 Mr William Mark's (the British Consul at Malaga) Official 
account of the occurrence, i6th May 1838. 



xv.] GRAYDON'S CONDUCT INDEFENSIBLE 243 

and under my [the Consul's] responsibility allowed to 
remain at large." 1 A jury of nine all pronounced the 
article to contain " matter subject to legal process " ; 2 but 
a second jury of twelve at the subsequent public trial 
" unanimously absolved " Graydon. 

Sir George Villiers acknowledged the letter from Count 
Ofalia (9th May) saying that he had written to Graydon 
warning him to be more cautious in future. He stated 
that from personal knowledge he could vouch for the 
purity of Lieutenant Graydon's intentions ; but he 
regretted that he should have announced his object in so 
imprudent a manner as to give offence to the ministers of 
the Catholic religion of Spain. In a despatch to Lord 
Palmerston he states that he has not thought it in the 
interests of the Bible Society to defend this conduct of 
Graydon, "whose zeal appears so little tempered by 
discretion," 3 as he had written to Count Ofalia. " Had I 
done so," he proceeds, " and thereby tended to confirm 
some of the idle reports that are current, that England 
had a national object to serve in the propagation of 
Protestantism in Spain, it is not improbable that a 
legislative Enactment might have been introduced by some 
Member of the Cortes, which would be offensive to 
England, and render it yet more difficult than it is the 
task the Bible Society seems desirous to undertake in this 
Country." i Sir George concludes by saying that he gave to 
" these Agents the best advice and assistance in my power, 
but if by their acts they infringe the laws of the Country," 
it will be impossible to defend them. 

Sir George thought so seriously of the Affaire Borrow^ 
as endangering the future liberty of Englishmen in Spain, 
that he went so far as to send a message to the Queen 
Regent, " by a means which I always have at my dis- 

1 Mr William Mark's (the British Consul at Malaga) Official 
account of the occurrence, 16th May 1838. 
- Ibid. 
3 Despatch to Viscount Palmerston, 12th May 1838. 4 Ibid. 



2-44 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

posal," 1 in which he told her that he thought the affair 
" might end in a manner most injurious to the continuance 
of friendly relations between the two Countries." 2 He 
received a gracious assurance that he should have satisfac- 
tion. Later there reached him 

" a second message from the Queen Regent expressing 
Her Majesty's hope that Count Ofalia's Note [of nth 
May] would be satisfactory to me, and stating that Her 
Ministers had so fully proved their incompetency by 
giving any just cause of complaint to the Minister of Her 
only real Friend and Ally, The Queen of England, that 
she should have dismissed them, were it not that the 
state of affairs in the Northern Provinces at this moment 
might be prejudiced by a change of Government, which 
Her Majesty said she knew no one more than myself 
would regret, but at the same time if I was not satisfied I 
had only to state what I required and it should be immedi- 
ately complied with. My answer was confined to a grate- 
ful acknowledgement of Her Majesty's condescension and 
kindness. Count Ofalia has informed me that as President 
of the Council He had enjoined all his Colleagues never 
to take any step directly or indirectly concerning an 
Englishman without a previous communication with Him 
as to its propriety, and I therefore venture to hope that 
the case of Mr Borrow will not be unattended with ultimate 
advantage to British subjects in Spain." 3 

The " Note " referred to by the Queen Regent in her 
message was Count Ofalia's acquiescence in Sir George 
Villiers' demands, with the exception of the dismissal of 
the Police Officer. His communication runs : — 

u ii//j May 1838. 

" SIR, — The affair of Mr Borrow is already decided by 
the Judge of First Instance and his decision has been 
approved by the Superior or Territorial Court of the 
Province. As I stated to you in my note of the fourth 
last, the foundation of the arrest of Mr Borrow, who was 

1 Despatch to Viscount Palmerston, 12th May 1838. a Ibid. 

3 Sir George Villiers' Despatch to Viscount Palmerston, 12th 
May 1838. 



xv.] COUNT OFALIA YIELDS 245 

detained (and not committed), was an official communica- 
tion from the Agent of Police, Don Pedro Martin de 
Eugenio, in which he averred that on intimating to Mr 
Borrow the written order of the Civil Governor relative to 
the seizure of a book which he had published and exposed 
for sale without complying with the forms prescribed by 
the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws of Spain, he (Mr Borrow) 
had thrown on the floor the order of the Superior 
Authority of the Province and used offensive expressions 
with regard to the said Authority. 

" The judicial proceedings have had for their object 
the ascertainment of the fact. Mr Borrow has denied the 
truth of the statement and the Agent of Police, who it 
appears entered the lodgings of Mr Borrow without being 
accompanied by any one, has been unable to confirm by 
evidence what he alleged in his official report, or to pro- 
duce the testimony of any one in support of it. 

" This being the case the judge has declared and the 
Territorial Court approved the superceding of the cause, 
putting Mr Borrow immediately at complete liberty, with 
the express declaration that the arrest he has suffered in 
no wise affects his honor and good fame, and that the 
' celador of Public Security,' Don Pedro Martin de Eugenio, 
be admonished for the future to proceed in the discharge 
of his duty with proper respect and circumspection accord- 
ing to the condition and character of the persons whom he 
has to address. 

" In accordance with the judicial decision and anxious 
to give satisfaction to Mr Borrow, correcting at the same 
time the fault of the Agent of Police in having presented 
himself without being accompanied by any person in order 
to effect the seizure in the lodging of Mr Borrow, Her 
Majesty has thought proper to command that the aforesaid 
Don Pedro Martin de Eugenio be suspended from his 
office for the space of Four Months, an order which I shall 
communicate to the Minister of the Interior, and that Mr 
Borrow be indemnified for the expenses which may have 
been incurred by his lodging in the apartment of the 
Alcaide (chief gaoler or Governor) for the days of his 
detention, although even before the expiration of 24 
hours after his arrest he was permitted to return to his 
house under his word of honor during the judicial pro- 
ceedings, as I stated to you in my note already cited. I 
flatter myself that in this determination you as well as 



246 IMPRISONMENT— A DIPLOMATIC CRISIS [1838 

your Government will see a fresh proof of the desire which 
animates that of H.M. the Queen Regent to maintain 
and draw closer the relation of friendship and alliance 
existing between the two countries. And with respect to 
the claim advanced by Mr Borrow, and of which you also 
make mention in Your Note of the Sth inst, I ought to 
declare to you that when the Judge of First Instance 
received official information of the said claim the business 
was already concluded in his tribunal, and consequently 
there was nothing to be done. Without, for this reason, 
there being understood any innovation with respect to 
the matter of privilege {fuero) according as it is now 
established." l 

Borrow was liberated with unsullied honour on 12th 
May, after twelve days' imprisonment. He refused the 
compensation that Sir George Villiers had made a 
condition, and later wrote to the Bible Society asking 
that there might be deducted from the amount due to 
him the expenses of the twelve days. He states also 
that he refused to acquiesce in the dismissal of the Agent 
of Police, by which he doubtless means his suspension, 
giving as a reason that there might be a wife and family 
likely to suffer. In any case the man was only carrying 
out his instructions. Borrow's reason for refusing the 
payment of his expenses was that he was unwilling to 
afford them, the Spanish Government, an opportunity of 
saying that after they had imprisoned an Englishman 
unjustly, and without cause, he condescended to receive 
money at their hands. 2 

The greatest loss to Borrow, consequent upon his 
imprisonment, no government could make good. His 
faithful Basque, Francisco, had contracted typhus, or 
gaol fever, that was raging at the time, and died within 
a few days of his master's release. " A more affectionate 
creature never breathed," Borrow wrote to Mr Brandram. 

1 The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at the 
Record Office. 

2 The Bible in Spain, page 578. 



xv.] THE RETURN OF ANTONIO 247 

The poor fellow, who, " to the strength of a giant joined 
the disposition of a lamb . . . was beloved even in the 
patio of the prison, where he used to pitch the bar and 
wrestle with the murderers and felons, always coming off 
victor." 1 The next day Antonio presented himself at 
Borrow's lodging, and without invitation or comment 
assumed the duties he had relinquished in order that he 
might enjoy the excitements of change. " Who should 
serve you now but myself?" he asked when questioned 
as to the meaning of his presence, " N'est pas que le sieur 
Francois est mort ! " 2 

John Hasfeldt's comment on his friend's imprisonment 
was characteristic. In September 1838 he wrote : — 

" The very last I heard of you is that you have had 
the great good fortune to be stopping in the carcel de corte 
at Madrid, which pleasing intelligence I found in the 
Preussiche Staats-Zeituug this last spring. If you were 
fatter no doubt the monks would have got up an Auto de 
Fe on your behalf, and you might easily have become a 
nineteenth-century martyr. Then your strange life would 
have been hawked about the streets of London for one 
penny, though you never obtained a fat living to eat and 
drink and take your ease after all the hardships you have 
endured." 

1 The Gypsies of Spain, page 24 1 . 

2 The Bible in Spain, page 579. 



CHAPTER XVI 

MAY — JULY 1838 

TDORROW was now to enter upon that lengthy dispute 
-*~^ with the Bible Society that almost brought about an 
open breach, and eventually proved the indirect cause 
that led to the severance of their relations. Graydon's 
mistake lay in not contenting himself with printing and 
distributing the Scriptures, of which he succeeded in 
getting rid of an enormous quantity. He had advertised 
his association with the Bible Society and proclaimed 
Borrow as a colleague, and the authorities at Madrid 
were not greatly to blame for being unable to distinguish 
between the two men. Whereas Graydon and Rule, who 
was also extremely obnoxious to the Spanish Clergy, were 
safe at Gibraltar or generally within easy reach of it, 
Borrow was in the very midst of the enemy. He was not 
unnaturally furiously angry at the situation that he con- 
ceived to have been brought about by these evangelists in 
the south. He referred to Graydon as the Evil Genius of 
the Society's Cause in Spain. 

It may be felt that Borrow was a prejudiced witness, 
he had every reason for being so ; but a despatch from Sir 
George Villiers to the Consul at Malaga shows clearly 
how the British Minister viewed Lieutenant Graydon's 
indiscretion : 

" You will communicate Count Ofalia's note to Mr 
Graydon," he writes, "and tell him from me that, feeling 
as I do a lively interest in the success of his mission, I 



xvi.] "MR GRAYDON MUST LEAVE SPAIN " 249 

cannot but regret that he should have published his 
opinions upon the Catholic religion and clergy in a form 
which should render inevitable the interference of ecclesi- 
astical authority. I have no doubt that Mr Graydon, in 
the pursuit of the meritorious task he has undertaken, is 
ready to endure persecution, but he should bear in mind 
that it will not lead him to success in this country, where 
prejudices are so inveterate, and at this moment, when 
party spirit disfigures even the best intentions. Unless 
Mr Graydon proceeds with the utmost circumspection it 
will be impossible for me, with the prospect of good result, 
to defend his conduct with the Government, for no foreigner 
has a right, however laudable may be his object, to seek 
the attainment of that object by infringing the laws of the 
country in which he resides." l 

In writing to Mr Brandram, Borrow pointed out that 
although he had travelled extensively in Spain and had 
established many depots for the sale of the Scriptures, not 
one word of complaint had been transmitted to the 
Government. He had been imprisoned ; but he had the 
authority of Count Ofalia for saying that it was not on 
account of his own, but rather of the action of others. 
Furthermore the Premier had advised him to endeavour to 
make friends among the clergy, and for the present at least 
make no further effort to promote the actual sale of the 
New Testament in Madrid. 

On the day following his release from prison (13th May) 
Borrow, after being sent for by the British Minister, wrote 
to Mr Brandram as follows : — 

" Sir George has commanded me ... to write to the 
following effect : — Mr Graydon must leave Spain, or the 
Bible Society must publicly disavow that his proceed- 
ings receive their encouragement, unless they wish to see 
the Sacred book, which it is their object to distribute, 
brought into universal odium and contempt. He has 
lately been to Malaga, and has there played precisely the 
same part which he acted last year at Valencia, with the 
addition that in printed writings he has insulted the Spanish 

1 History of the British and Foreign Bible Society. By W. Canton. 



250 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

Government in the most inexcusable manner. A formal 
complaint of his conduct has been sent up from Malaga, 
and a copy of one of his writings. Sir George blushed 
when he saw it, and informed Count Ofalia that any steps 
which might be taken towards punishing the author would 
receive no impediment from him. I shall not make any 
observation on this matter farther than stating that I have 
never had any other opinion of Mr Graydon than that 
he is insane — insane as the person who for the sake of 
warming his own hands would set a street on fire. 
Sir George said to-day that he (Graydon) was the cause 
of my harmless shop being closed at Madrid and also of 
my imprisonment. The Society will of course com- 
municate with Sir George on the subject, I wash my 
hands of it." 

On 23rd May Borrow wrote again to Mr Brandram : 
" In the name of the Most Highest take steps for pre- 
venting that miserable creature Graydon from ruining us 
all." Borrow's use of the term " insane " with regard to 
Graydon was fully justified. The Rev. W. H. Rule wrote 
to him on 14th May : 

" Our worthy brother Graydon is, I suppose, in Granada. 
I overtook him in Cartagena, endured the process of 
osculation, saw him without rhime or reason wrangle with 
and publicly insult our Consul there. Had his company 
in the steamer to Almeria, much to my discomfort. Never 
was a man fuller of love and impudence, compounded in 
the most provoking manner. In Malaga, just as we were 
to part, he broke out into a strain highly disagreeable, and 
I therefore thought it a convenient occasion to tell him 
that I should have no more to do with him. I left him 
dancing and raving like an energumen." 

This letter Borrow indiscreetly sent to Mr Brandram, 
much to Mr Rule's regret, who wrote to Mr Brandram, 
saying that whilst he had nothing to retract, he would not 
have written for the eyes of the Bible Society's Committee 
what he had written to Borrow. To Mr Rule Lieut. 
Graydon was " a good man, or at least a well-meaning 
[one], who has not the balance of judgment and temper 



xvi.] THE ADVERTISEMENT 251 

necessary for the situation he occupies." He was given 
to "the promulgation of Millenianism," and to calling 
the Bible " the true book of the Constitution." 

Marin had confirmed all the rumours current about 
Graydon. In order to remove from his shoulders "the 
burden of obloquy," Borrow's first act on leaving prison 
was to publish in the Correo Nacional an advertisement 
disclaiming, in the name of the Bible Society, any 
writings which may have been circulated tending to 
lower the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, in the eyes 
of the people. He denied that it was the Society's 
intention or wish to make proselytes from the Roman 
Catholic form of worship, and that it was at all times 
prepared to extend the hand of brotherhood to the 
Spanish clergy. This notice was signed " George Borrow, 
Sole authorised Agent of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society in Spain." 

El Gazeta Oficial, in commenting on the situation, saw 
in the anti-Catholic tracts circulated by Graydon "part of 
the monstrous plan, whose existence can no longer be 
called in question, concocted by the enemies of all public 
order, for the purpose of inaugurating on our unhappy soil 
a social revolution, just as the political one is drawing to a 
close." The Government was urged to allow no longer 
these attacks upon the religion of the country. Rather 
illogically the article concludes by paying a tribute to the 
Bible Society, " considered not under the religious but the 
social aspect." After praising its prudence for " accommo- 
dating itself to the civil and ecclesiastical laws of each 
country, and by adopting the editions there current," 
it concludes with the sophisticated argument that, " if the 
great object be the propagation of evangelic maxims, the 
notes are no obstacle, and by preserving them we fulfil our 
religious principle of not permitting to private reason the 
interpretation of the Sacred Word." 

The General Committee expressed themselves, some- 
what enigmatically, it must be confessed, as in no way 



252 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

surprised at this article, being from past experience learned 
enough in the ways of Rome to anticipate her. 

" That advertisement," Borrow wrote six months later 
in his Report that was subsequently withdrawn, " gave 
infinite satisfaction to the liberal clergy. I was compli- 
mented for it by the Primate of Spain, who said I had 
redeemed my credit and that of the Society, and it is with 
some feeling of pride that I state that it choked and pre- 
vented the publication of a series of terrible essays against 
the Bible Society, which were intended for the Official 
Gazette, and which were written by the Licentiate Albert 
Lister, the editor of that journal, the friend of Blanco 
White, and the most talented man in Spain. These 
essays still exist in the editorial drawer, and were com- 
municated to me by the head manager of the royal 
printing office, my respected friend and countryman Mr 
Charles Wood, whose evidence in this matter and in many 
others I can command at pleasure. In lieu of which 
essays came out a mild and conciliatory article by the 
same writer, which, taking into consideration the country 
in which it was written, and its peculiar circumstances, was 
an encouragement to the Bible Society to proceed, although 
with secrecy and caution ; yet this article, sadly misunder- 
stood in England, gave rise to communications from home 
highly mortifying to myself and ruinous to the Bible 
cause." 

Borrow had written from prison to Mr Brandram J 
telling him that it had " pleased God to confer upon me 
the highest of mortal honors, the privilege of bearing- 
chains for His sake." After describing how it had always 
been his practice, before taking any step, to consult with 
Sir George Villiers and receive his approval, and that the 
present situation had not been brought about by any rash- 
ness on his, Borrow's, part, he proceeds to convey the 
following curious piece of information that must have 
caused some surprise at Earl Street : — 

" I will now state a fact, which speaks volumes as to 
the state of affairs at Madrid. My arch - enemy, the 
Archbishop of Toledo, the primate of Spain, wishes to 

1 On [nth] May 1838. 



xvi.] THE ARCHBISHOP S KISS 253 

give me the kiss of brotherly Peace. He has caused a 
message to be conveyed to me in my dungeon, 
assuring me that he has had no share in causing my 
imprisonment, which he says was the work of the Civil 
Governor, who was incited to the step by the Jesuits. 
He adds that he is determined to seek out my persecutors 
amongst the clergy, and to have them punished, and that 
when I leave prison he shall be happy to co-operate with 
me in the dissemination of the Gospel ! ! I cannot write 
much now, for I am not well, having been bled and 
blistered. I must, however, devote a few lines to another 
subject, but not one of rejoicing or Christian exultation. 
Marin arrived just after my arrest, and visited me in 
prison, and there favoured me with a scene of despair, 
abject despair, which nearly turned my brain. I despised 
the creature, God forgive me, but I pitied him ; for he 
was without money and expected every moment to 
be seized like myself and incarcerated, and he is by 
no means anxious to be invested with the honors of 
martyrdom." 

That the Primate of Spain should have sent to Borrow 
such a message is surprising ; but what is still more so is 
that six days later Borrow wrote telling Mr Brandram 
that he had asked a bishop to arrange an interview 
between him and the Archbishop of Toledo, and Sir 
George Villiers, who was present, begged the same 
privilege. 1 On 23rd May Borrow wrote again to Mr 
Brandram : " I have just had an interview with the Arch- 
bishop. It was satisfactory to a degree I had not dared to 
hope for." In his next letter (25th May) he writes : 

" I have had, as you are aware, an interview with the 
Archbishop of Toledo. I have not time to state partic- 
ulars, but he said amongst other things, ' Be prudent, the 
Government are disposed to arrange matters amicably, 
and I am disposed to co-operate with them.' At parting 
he shook me most kindly by the hand saying that he liked 
me. Sir George intends to visit him in a few days. He 
is an old, venerable - looking man, between seventy and 
eighty. When I saw him he was dressed with the utmost 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th May 1838. 



254 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

simplicity, with the exception of a most splendid amethyst 
ring, the lustre of which was truly dazzling." 

There is only one conclusion to be drawn from this 
archiepiscopal condescension, if the interview were not 
indeed sought by Borrow, that it was a political move to 
pacify the wounded feelings of an outraged Englishman 
at a time when the goodwill of England was as necessary 
to the kingdom of Spain as the sun itself. 

The upshot of the Malaga Incident was that "the 
Spanish Government resolved to put an end to Bible 
transactions in Spain, and forthwith gave orders for the 
seizure of all the Bibles and Testaments in the country, 
wherever they might be deposited or exposed for sale. 
They notified Sir George Villiers of the decision, expressly 
stating that the resolution was taken in consequence of 
the ' Ocurrido en Malaga! " 2 The letter in which Sir 
George Villiers was informed of the Government's decision 
runs as follows : — 

Madrid, 19//Z May 1838. 

Sir, 

I have the honor to inform You that in conse- 
quence of what has taken place at Malaga and other 
places, respecting the publication and sale of the Bible 
translated by Padre Scio, which are not complete (since 
they do not contain all the Books which the Catholic 
Church recognises as Canonical) nor even being complete 
could they be printed unless furnished with the Notes 
of the said Padre Scio, according to the existing regula- 
tions ; Her Majesty has thought proper to prevent this 
publication and sale, but without insulting or molesting 
those British Subjects who for some time past have been 
introducing them into the Kingdom and selling them at 
the lowest prices, thinking they were conferring a benefit 
when in reality they were doing an injury. 

I have also to state to You that in order to carry this 
Royal determination into effect, orders have been issued 
to prohibit its being printed in Spain, in the vulgar 
tongue, unless it should be the entire Bible as recognised 
by the Catholic Church with corresponding Notes, pre- 

1 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th May 1838. 



xvi.] BORROW UNDISMAYED 255 

venting its admittance at the Frontiers, as is the case with 
books printed in Spanish abroad ; that the Bibles exposed 
for public sale be seized and given to their owners in 
a packet marked and sealed, upon the condition of its 
being sent out of the country through the Custom Houses 
on the Frontier or at the Ports. 

I avail myself, etc., etc. 

The Count of Ofalia. 1 

Borrow and Graydon were advised of this inhibition, 
and both ordered their establishments for the sale of 
books to be closed, thus showing that they were " Gentle- 
men who are animated with due respect for the Laws 
of Spain." 2 At Valladolid, Santiago, Orviedo, Pontevedra, 
Seville, Salamanca, and Malaga the decree was at once 
enforced. On learning that the books at his depots had all 
been seized, Borrow became apprehensive for the safety of 
his Madrid stock of New Testaments, some three thousand 
in number. He accordingly had them removed, under 
cover of darkness, to the houses of his friends. 

Borrow was not the man to accept defeat, and he 
wrote to Mr Brandram with great cheerfulness : 

" This, however, gives me little uneasiness, for, with the 
blessing of God, I shall be able to repair all, always 
provided I am allowed to follow my own plans, and to 
avail myself of the advantages which have lately been 
opened — especially to cultivate the kind feeling lately 
manifested towards me by the principal Spanish clergy. 3 

Later he wrote : 

" Another bitter cup has been filled for my swallowing. 
The Bible Society and myself have been accused of 
blasphemy, sedition, etc. A collection of tracts has been 
seized in Murcia, in which the Catholic religion and its 

1 The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at 
the Record Office. 

- Sir George Villiers to Count Ofalia, 25th May 1838. 
3 Letter to Mr A. Brandram, 25th May 1838. 



256 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

dogmas are handled with the most abusive severity ; l 
these books have been sworn to as having been left by the 
Committee of the Bible Society whilst in that town, and 
Count Ofalia has been called upon to sign an order for 
my arrest and banishment from Spain. Sir George, 
however, advises me to remain quiet and not to be 
alarmed, as he will answer for my innocence." 2 

Borrow strove to galvanise the General Committee 
into action. The Spanish newspapers were inflamed 
against the Society as a sectarian, not a Christian institu- 
tion. " Zeal is a precious thing," he told Mr Brandram, 
" when accompanied with one grain of common sense." 
The theme of his letters was the removal of Graydon. 
" Do not be cast down," he writes ; " all will go well if the 
stumbling block [Graydon] be removed." 

Borrow's state of mind may well be imagined, and if by 
his impulsive letters he unwittingly harmed his own cause 
at Earl Street, he did so as a man whose liberty, perhaps 
his life even, was being jeopardised, although not deliber- 
ately, by another whom the reforming spirit seemed 
likely to carry to any excess. It must be admitted 
that for the time being Borrow had forgotten the idiom of 
Earl Street. 

The president (a bishop) of the body of ecclesiastics 
that was engaged in examining the Society's Spanish 
Bible, communicated with Borrow, through Mr Charles 
Wood, the suggestion that " the Committee of the Bible 
Society should in the present exigency draw up an exposi- 
tion of their views respecting Spain, stating what they are 
prepared to do and what they are not prepared to do ; 
above all, whether in seeking to circulate the Gospel in this 

1 At the time of writing Borrow had not seen any of these 
tracts himself; but Sir George Villiers, who had, expressed the 
opinion that "one or two of them were outrages not only to common 
sense but to decency." — Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 25th 
June 1838. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th June 1838. 



xvi.] ANOTHER BIBLICAL TOUR 257 

Country they harbour any projects hostile to the Govern- 
ment or the established religion ; moreover, whether the 
late distribution of tracts was done by their connivance or 
authority, and whether they are disposed to sanction in 
future the publication in Spain of such a class of writings." x 

Borrow was of the opinion that this should be done, 
although he would not take upon himself to advise the 
Committee upon such a point, he merely remarked that 
" the Prelate in question is a most learned and respectable 
man, and one of the warmest of our friends." 2 The Society 
very naturally declined to commit itself to any such under- 
taking. It would not have been quite logical or conceiv- 
able that a Protestant body should give a guarantee that 
it harboured no projects hostile to Rome. 

Undeterred by the official edict against the circulation 
in Spain of the Scriptures, Borrow wrote to Mr Brandram 
(14th June) : 

"I should wish to make another Biblical tour this 
summer, until the storm be blown over. Should I under- 
take such an expedition, I should avoid the towns and 
devote myself entirely to the peasantry. I have sometimes 
thought of visiting the villages of the Alpujarra Mountains 
in Andalusia, where the people live quite secluded from 
the world ; what do you think of my project ? " 

All this time Borrow had heard nothing from Earl 
Street as to the effect being produced there by his letters. 
On 15th or 16th June he received a long letter from Mr 
Brandram enclosing the Resolutions of the General 
Committee with regard to the crisis. They proved con- 
clusively that the officials failed entirely to appreciate the 
state of affairs in Spain, and the critical situation of their 
paid and accredited agent, George Borrow. Their pride 
had probably been wounded by Borrow's impetuous 
requests, that might easily have appeared to them in the 
light of commands. It may have struck some that the 

1 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th June 1S38. 
s Ibid. 

R 



258 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

Spanish affairs of the Society were being administered 
from Madrid, and that they themselves were being told, 
not what it was expedient to do, but what they must do. 
Another factor in the situation was the Committee's 
friendliness for their impulsive, unsalaried servant Lieut. 
Graydon, who was certainly a picturesque, almost melo- 
dramatic figure. In any case the letter from Mr Brandram 
that accompanied the Resolutions was couched in a strain 
of fair play to Graydon that became a thinly disguised 
partizanship. At the meeting of the Committee held on 
28th May the following Resolutions had been adopted : — 

First. — " That Mr Borrow be requested to inform Sir 
George Villiers that this Committee have written to 
Mr Graydon through their Secretary, desiring him to 
leave Spain on account of his personal safety." 

Second. — " That Mr Borrow be informed that in the 
absence of specific documents, this Committee cannot 
offer any opinion on the proceedings of Mr Graydon, and 
that therefore he be desired to obtain, either in original 
or copy, the objectionable papers alleged to have been 
issued by Mr Graydon and to transmit them hither." 

TJiird. — " That Mr Borrow be requested not to repeat 
the Advertisement contained in the Correo National of 
the 17th inst, and that he be cautioned how he commits 
the Society by advertisements of a similar character. And 
further, that he be desired to state to Sir George Villiers 
that the advertisement in question was inserted by him 
on the spur of the moment, and without any opportunity 
of obtaining instructions from this Committee." 

In justice to the Committee, it must be said that they 
did not appreciate the delicacy of the situation, being only 
Christians and not diplomatists. Perhaps they were 
unaware that the whole of Spain was under martial law, 
or if they were, the true significance of the fact failed to 
strike them. Mr Brandram's letter accompanying these 
Resolutions is little more than an amplification of the 
Committee's decision : 

" I have, I assure you," he writes, " endeavoured to 
place myself in your situation and enter into your feelings 



XVI.] A REBUKE FROM EARL STREET 259 

strongly excited by the irreparable mischief which you 
suppose Mr G. to have done to our cause so dear to you. 
Under the influence of these feelings you have written 
with, what appears to us, unmitigated severity of his 
conduct. But now, let me entreat you to enter into our 
feelings a little, and to consider what we owe to Mr 
Graydon. If we have at times thought him imprudent, 
we have seen enough in him to make us both admire and 
love him. He has ever approved himself as an upright, 
faithful, conscientious, indefatigable agent ; one who has 
shrunk from no trials and no dangers ; one who has gone 
through in our service many and extraordinary hardships. 
What have we against him at present? He has issued 
certain documents of a very offensive character, as is 
alleged. We have not seen them, neither does it appear 
that you have, but that you speak from the recollections 
of Mr Sothern." 1 

1 The quotations from Lieut. Graydon's tracts were not sent by 

Borrow to Mr Brandram until some weeks later. They ran : — A 

True History of the Dolorous Virgin to whom the Rebellious and 

Fanatical Don Carlos Has Committed His Cause and the Ignorance 

which It Displays. 

Extracts. 

Page 17. You will readily see in all those grandiose epithets 
showered upon Mary, the work of the enemy of God, which tending 
essentially towards idolatry has managed, under the cloak of 
Christianity, to introduce idolatry, and endeavours to divert to a 
creature, and even to the image of that creature, the adoration which 
is due to God alone. Without doubt it is with this very object that 
on all sides we see erected statues of Mary, adorned with a crown, 
and bearing in her arms a child of tender years, as though to accustom 
the populace intimately to the idea of Mary's superiority over Jesus. 

Page 30. This, then, is our conclusion. In recognising and 
sanctioning this cult, the Church of Rome constitutes itself an 
idolatrous Church, and every member of it who is incapable of 
detecting the truth behind the monstrous accumulation of impieties 
with which they veil it, is proclaimed by the Church as condemned to 
perdition. The guiding light of this Church, which they are not 
ashamed to smother or to procure the smothering of, by which never- 
theless they hold their authority, to be plain, the word of God, should 
at least teach them, if they set any value on the Spirit of Christ, that 
their Papal Bulls would be better directed to the cleansing of the 
Roman Church from all its iniquities than to the promulgation of such 
unjust prohibitions. Yet in struggling against better things, this 
Church is protecting and hallowing in all directions an innumerable 
collection of superstitions and false cults, and it is clear that by this 
means it is abased and labelled as one of the principal agents of 
Anti-Christ." 



260 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

The letter goes on to say that if it can be shown that 
Lieut. Graydon is acting in the same manner as he did in 
Valencia, for which he was admonished, 

" he will assuredly be recalled on this ground. You 
wonder perhaps that we for a moment doubt the fact of 
his reiterated imprudence ; but audi alteram partem must 
be our rule — and besides, on reviewing the Valencia 
proceedings, we draw a wide distinction. Had he been 
as free, as you suppose him to be, of the trammels of 
office in our service, many would say and think that he 
was prefectly at liberty to act and speak as he did of the 
Authorities, if he chose to take the consequences. Really 
in such a country it is no marvel if his Spirit has been 
stirred within him ! Will you allow me to remind you of 
the strong things in your own letter to the Valencia 
ecclesiastic, the well pointed and oft repeated Vae ! " 

Mr Brandram points out that strong language is 
frequently the sword of the Reformer, and that there 
are times when it has the highest sanction ; but 

"the judgment of all [the members of the Committee] 
will be that an Agent of the Bible Society is a Reformer, 
not by bis preaching or denouncing, but by the distribu- 
tion of the Bible. If Mr G's. conduct is no worse than it 
was in Valencia," the letter continues, rather inconsistently, 
in the light of the assurance in the early part that recall 
would be the punishment for another such lapse into 
indiscretion, "you must not expect anything beyond a 
qualified disavowal of it, and that simply as unbecoming 
an Agent of such a Society as ours. 

" After what I have written, you will hardly feel 
surprised that our Committee could not quite approve 
of your Advertisement. We have ever regarded Mr 
Graydon as much our Agent as yourself. In three of 
our printed reports in succession we make no difference 
in speaking of you both. We are anxious to do nothing 
to weaken your hands at so important a crisis, and we 
conceive that the terms we have employed in our 
Resolution are the mildest we could have used. Do 
not insert the Advertisement a second time. Let it 
pass ; let it be forgotten. If necessary we shall give 
the public intimation that Mr G. was, but is not our 



xvi.] NO SYMPATHY WITH BORROW 261 

agent any longer. Remember, we entreat you, the very 
delicate position that such a manifesto places us in, as well 
as the effect which it may have on Mr Graydon's personal 
safety. We give you full credit for believing it was your 
duty, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, to take 
so decided and bold a step, and that you thought yourself 
fully justified by the distinction of salaried and unsalaried 
Agent, in speaking of yourself as the alone accredited Agent 
of the Society. Possibly when you reflect a little upon the 
matter you may view it in another light. There are 
besides some sentiments in the Advertisement which we 
cannot perhaps fully accord with. ... If to our poor friend 
there has befallen the saddest of all calamities to which 
you allude, should we not speak of him with all tenderness. 
If he be insane I believe much of it is to be attributed to 
that entire devotion with which he has devoted himself to 
our work. 

No complaint can be urged against the Committee for 
refusing to condemn one of their agents unheard, and 
without documentary evidence ; but it was strange that 
they should pass resolutions that contained no word of 
sympathy with Borrow for his sufferings in a typhus- 
infested prison. It is even more strange that the covering 
letter should refer to Graydon's sufferings and hardships 
and the danger to his person, without apparently realising 
that Borrow had actually suffered what the Committee feared 
that Graydon might suffer. There is no doubt that Borrow's 
impulsive letters had greatly offended everybody at Earl 
Street, where Lieut. Graydon appears to have been 
extremely popular ; and the few words of sympathy 
with Borrow that might have saved much acrimonious 
correspondence were neither resolved nor written. 

The other side of the picture is shown in a vigorous 
passage from Borrow's Report, which was afterwards 
withdrawn : 

" A helpless widow [the mother of Don Pascual Marin] 
was insulted, her liberty of conscience invaded, and her 
only son incited to rebellion against her. A lunatic 
[Lieut. Graydon] was employed as the repartidor, or 



262 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

distributor, of the Blessed Bible, who, having his head 
crammed with what he understood not, ran through the 
streets of Valencia crying aloud that Christ was nigh 
at hand and would appear in a short time, whilst 
advertisements to much the same effect were busily 
circulated, in which the name, the noble name, of the 
Bible Society was prostituted ; whilst the Bible, exposed 
for sale in the apartment of a public house, served for 
little more than a decoy to the idle and curious, who 
were there treated with incoherent railings against the 
Church of Rome and Babylon in a dialect which it was 
well for the deliverer that only a few of the audience 
understood. But I fly from these details, and will now 
repeat the consequences of the above proceedings to 
myself; for I, I, and only I, as every respectable person 
in Madrid can vouch, have paid the penalty for them all, 
though as innocent as the babe who has not yet seen 
the light." 

If the General Committee at a period of anxiety and 
annoyance failed to pay tribute to Borrow's many 
qualities, the official historian of the Society makes good 
the omission when he describes him as " A strange, impul- 
sive, more or less inflammable creature as he must have 
occasionally seemed to the Secretaries and Editorial 
Superintendent, he had proved himself a man of excep- 
tional ability, energy, tact, prudence — above all, a man 
whose heart was in his work." 1 

Borrow's acknowledgment of the Resolutions was 
dated 16th June. It ran : — 

" I have received your communication of the 30th ult. 
containing the resolutions of the Committee, to which 
I shall of course attend. 

" Of your letter in general, permit me to state that I 
reverence the spirit in which it is written, and am 
perfectly disposed to admit the correctness of the views 
which it exhibits ; but it appears to me that in one or 
two instances I have been misunderstood in the letters 
which I have addressed [to you] on the subject of Graydon. 

1 The History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, by W. 
Canton. 



xvi.] A JUSTIFICATION 263 

" I bear this unfortunate gentleman no ill will, God 
forbid, and it will give me pain if he were reprimanded 
publicly or privately ; moreover, I can see no utility likely 
to accrue from such a proceeding. All that I have stated 
hitherto is the damage which he has done in Spain 
to the cause and myself, by the — what shall I call it ? — 
imprudence of his conduct ; and the idea which I have 
endeavoured to inculcate is the absolute necessity of his 
leaving Spain instantly. 

" Take now in good part what I am about to say, 
and O ! do not misunderstand me ! I owe a great deal 
to the Bible Society, and the Bible Society owes nothing 
to me. I am well aware and am always disposed to admit 
that it can find thousands more zealous, more active, 
and in every respect more adapted to transact its affairs 
and watch over its interests ; yet, with this consciousness 
of my own inutility, I must be permitted to state that, 
linked to a man like Graydon, I can no longer consent to 
be, and that if the Society expect such a thing, I must 
take the liberty of retiring, perhaps to the wilds of Tartary 
or the Zingani camps of Siberia. 

" My name at present is become public property, no 
very enviable distinction in these unhappy times, and 
neither wished nor sought by myself. I have of late been 
subjected to circumstances which have rendered me 
obnoxious to the hatred of those who never forgive, the 
Bloody Church of Rome, which I have [no] doubt will 
sooner or later find means to accomplish my ruin ; for no 
one is better aware than myself of its fearful resources, 
whether in England or Spain, in Italy or in any other 
part. I should not be now in this situation had I been 
permitted to act alone. How much more would have been 
accomplished, it does not become me to guess. 

" I had as many or more difficulties to surmount in 
Russia than I originally had here, yet all that the Society 
expected or desired was effected, without stir or noise, and 
that in the teeth of an imperial Ukase which forbade the 
work which I was employed to superintend. 

" Concerning my late affair, I must here state that I 
was sent to prison on a charge which was subsequently 
acknowledged not only to be false but ridiculous ; I was 
accused of uttering words disrespectful towards the Geft 
Politico of Madrid ; my accuser was an officer of the 
police, who entered my apartment one morning before I 



264 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

was dressed, and commenced searching my papers and 
flinging my books into disorder. Happily, however, the 
people of the house, who were listening at the door, heard 
all that passed, and declared on oath that so far from 
mentioning the Gefe Politico, I merely told the officer 
that he, the officer, was an insolent fellow, and that I 
would cause him to be punished. He subsequently 
confessed that he was an instrument of the Vicar 
General, and that he merely came to my apartment 
in order to obtain a pretence for making a complaint. He 
has been dismissed from his situation and the Queen 
[Regent] has expressed her sorrow at my imprisonment. 
If there be any doubt entertained on the matter, pray let 
Sir George Villiers be written to ! 

" I should be happy to hear what success attends our 
efforts in China. I hope a prudent conduct has been 
adopted ; for think not that a strange and loud language 
will find favour in the eyes of the Chinese ; and above all, 
I hope that we have not got into war with the Augustines 
and their followers, who, if properly managed, may be of 
incalculable service in propagating the Scriptures. . . . 
P.S. — The Documents, or some of them, shall be sent as 
soon as possible." 

Nine days later (25th June) Borrow wrote : 

" I now await your orders. I wish to know whether I 
am at liberty to pursue the course which may seem to me 
best under existing circumstances, and which at present 
appears to be to mount my horses, which are neighing in 
the stable, and once more betake myself to the plains and 
mountains of dusty Spain, and to dispose of my Testaments 
to the muleteers and peasants. By doing so I shall 
employ myself usefully, and at the same time avoid giving 
offence. Better days will soon arrive, which will enable 
me to return to Madrid and reopen my shop, till then, 
however, I should wish to pursue my labours in com- 
parative obscurity." 

Replying to Borrow's letter of 16th June, Mr Brandram 
wrote (29th June) : " I trust we shall not easily forget your 
services in St Petersburg, but suffer me to remind you 
that when you came to the point of distribution your 



xvi.] A DISCREDITABLE REPROACH 265 

success ended." 1 This altogether unworthy remark was 
neither creditable to the writer nor to the distinguished 
Society on whose behalf he wrote. Borrow had done all 
that a man was capable of to distribute the books. His 
reply was dignified and effective. 

" It was unkind and unjust to taunt me with having 
been unsuccessful in distributing the Scriptures. Allow me 
to state that no other person under the same circumstances 
would have distributed the tenth part ; yet had I been 
utterly unsuccessful, it would have been wrong to check me 
with being so, after all I have undergone, and with how 
little of that are you acquainted." 2 

In response, Mr Brandram wrote (28th July) : 

" You have considered that I have taunted you with 
want of success in St Petersburg. I thought that the way 
in which I introduced that subject would have prevented 
any such unpleasant and fanciful impression." 

That was all ! It became evident to all at Earl Street that 
a conference between Borrow, the Officials and the General 
Committee was imperative if the air were to be cleared of the 
rancour that seemed to increase with each interchange of 
letters. 3 Unless something were done, a breach seemed 
inevitable, a thing the Society did not appear to desire. 
When Borrow first became aware that he was wanted at 
Earl Street for the purpose of a personal conference, he 
in all probability conceived it to be tantamount to a 

1 This letter reached Borrow when his "foot was in the stirrup," 
as he phrased it, ready to set out for the Sagra of Toledo. He felt 
that it could only have originated with " the enemy of mankind for 
the purpose of perplexing my already harrassed and agitated mind" ; 
but he continues, " merely exclaiming ' Satan, I defy thee,' I hurried 
to the Sagra. . . . But it is hard to wrestle with the great enemy." 
General Report, withdrawn. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th July 1838. 

3 Mr Brandram informed Borrow that the General Committee 
wished him to visit England if he could do so without injury to the 
cause (29th June). 



266 STRAINED RELATIONS [1838 

recall, and he was averse from leaving the field to the 
enemy. 

" In the name of the Highest," he wrote, 1 " I entreat 
you all to banish such a preposterous idea ; a journey 
home (provided you intend that I should return to Spain) 
could lead to no result but expense and the loss of precious 
time. I have nothing to explain to you which you are not 
already perfectly well acquainted with by my late letters. 
I was fully aware at the time I was writing them that I 
should afford you little satisfaction, for the plain unvarnished 
truth is seldom agreeable ; but I now repeat, and these are 
perhaps among the last words which I shall ever be per- 
mitted to pen, that I cannot approve, and I am sure no 
Christian can, of the system which has lately been pursued 
in the large sea-port cities of Spain, and which the Bible 
Society has been supposed to sanction, notwithstanding 
the most unreflecting person could easily foresee that such 
a line of conduct could produce nothing in the end but 
obloquy and misfortune." 

Borrow saw that his departure from Spain would be 
construed by his enemies as flight, and that their joy would 
be great in consequence. 

The Spanish authorities were determined if possible to 
rid the country of missionaries. The Gazeta Oficial of 
Madrid drew attention to the fact that in Valencia there 
had been distributed thousands of pamphlets " against the 
religion we profess." Sir George Villiers enquired into 
the matter and found that there was no evidence that the 
pamphlets had been written, printed, or published in 
England ; and when writing to Count Ofalia on the 
subject he informed him that the Bible Society 
distributed, not tracts or controversial writings, but the 
Scriptures. 

The next move on the part of the authorities was to 
produce sworn testimony from three people (all living in 
the same house, by the way) that they had purchased 
copies of "the New Testament and other Biblical transla- 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th July 1838. 



xvi.] COUNT OFALIA'S ADVICE 267 

tions at the Despacho on 5th May.*' Borrow was in prison 
at the time, and his assistant denied the sale. Documents 
were also produced proving that the imprint on the title- 
page of the Scio New Testament was false, as at the time 
it was printed no such printer as Andreas Borrego (who by 
the way was the Government printer and at one time a 
candidate for cabinet rank) lived in Madrid. In drawing 
the British Minister's attention to these matters, Count 
Ofalia wrote (31st May) : 

"It would be opportune if you would be pleased to 
advise Mr Borrow that, convinced of the inutility of 
his efforts for propagating here the translation in the 
vulgar tongue of Sacred Writings without the forms 
required by law, he would do much better in making 
use of his talents in some other class of scientifical or 
literary Works during his residence in Spain, giving up 
Biblical Enterprises, which may be useful in other 
countries, but which in this Kingdom are prejudicial for 
very obvious reasons." 



CHAPTER XVII 

JULY — NOVEMBER 1838 

T)ORROW'S spirit chafed under this spell of enforced 
-*-' idleness. His horses were neighing in the stable 
and " Sefior Antonio was neighing in the house," as 
Maria Diaz expressed it ; and for himself, Borrow required 
something more actively stimulating than pen and ink 
encounters with Mr Brandram. He therefore determined 
to defy the prohibition and make an excursion into the 
rural districts of New Castile, offering his Testaments for 
sale as he went, and sending on supplies ahead. His first 
objective was Villa Seca, a village situated on the banks 
of the Tagus about nine leagues from Madrid. 

He was aware of the danger he ran in thus disregard- 
ing the official decree. 

" I will not conceal from you ; " he writes to Mr 
Brandram on 14th July, "that I am playing a daring 
game, and it is very possible that when I least expect it I 
may be seized, tied to the tail of a mule, and dragged 
either to the prison of Toledo or Madrid. Yet such a 
prospect does not discourage me in the least, but rather 
urges me on to persevere ; for I assure you, and in this 
assertion there lurks not the slightest desire to magnify 
myself and produce an effect, that I am eager to lay down 
my life in this cause, and whether a Carlist's bullet or a 
gaol-fever bring my career to an end, I am perfectly 
indifferent." 

He was not averse from martyrdom ; but he objected 
to being precipitated into it by another man's folly. In 

268 



xvil] THE SPANIARDS OF DON QUIXOTE 269 

his interview with Count Ofalia, he had been solemnly 
warned that if a second time he came within the clutches 
of the authorities he might not escape so easily, and had 
replied that it was " a pleasant thing to be persecuted 
for the Gospel's sake." 

In his decision to make Villa Seca his temporary head- 
quarters, Borrow had been influenced by the fact that it 
was the home of Maria Diaz, his friend and landlady. 
Her husband was there working on the land, Maria herself 
living in Madrid that her children might be properly 
educated. Borrow left Madrid on ioth July, and on 
his arrival at Villa Seca he was cordially welcomed by 
Juan Lopez, the husband of Maria Diaz, who continued to 
use her maiden name, in accordance with Spanish custom. 
Lopez subsequently proved of the greatest possible assist- 
ance in the work of distribution, shaming both Borrow and 
Antonio by his energy and powers of endurance. 

The inhabitants of Villa Seca and the surrounding 
villages of Bargas, Coveja, Villa Luenga, Mocejon, Yuncler 
eagerly bought up " the book of life," and each day the 
three men rode forth in heat so great that " the very 
arrieros frequently fall dead from their mules, smitten by 
a sun-stroke." l 

It was in Villa Seca that Borrow found " all that 
gravity of deportment and chivalry of disposition which 
Cervantes is said to have sneered away " ;' 2 and there were 
to be heard " those grandiose expressions which, when met 
with in the romances of chivalry, are scoffed at as ridiculous 
exaggerations." 3 Borrow so charmed the people of the 
district with the elaborate formality of his manner, that he 
became convinced that any attempt to arrest or do him 
harm would have met with a violent resistance, even to the 
length of the drawing of knives in his defence. 

In less than a week some two hundred Testaments had 
been disposed of, and a fresh supply had to be obtained 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 602. 2 Ibid., page 606. 

3 Ibid., page 606. 



270 A RECKLESS MISSIONARY [1838 

from Madrid. Borrow's methods had now changed. He 
had, of necessity, to make as little stir as possible in order 
to avoid an unenviable notoriety. He carefully eschewed 
advertisements and hand-bills, and limited himself almost 
entirely to the simple statement that he brought to the 
people " the words and life of the Saviour and His Saints at 
a price adapted to their humble means." 1 

It is interesting to note in connection with this period 
of Borrow's activities in Spain, that in 1908 one of the 
sons of Maria Diaz and Juan Lopez was sought out at 
Villa Seca by a representative of the Bible Society, and 
interrogated as to whether he remembered Borrow. 
Eduardo Lopez (then seventy-four years of age) stated that 
he was a child of eight 2 when Borrow lived at the house of 
his mother ; yet he remembers that " El ingles " was tall 
and robust, with fair hair turning grey. Eduardo and his 
young brother regarded Borrow with both fear and 
respect ; for, their father being absent, he used to punish 
them for misdemeanours by setting them on the table and 
making them remain perfectly quiet for a considerable 
time. The old man remembered that Borrow had two 
horses whom he called " la Jaca " and " el Mondragon," 
and that he used to take to the house of Maria Diaz " his 
trunk full of books which were beautifully bound." He 
remembered Borrow's Greek servant, " Antonio Guchino " 
(the Antonio Buchini of The Bible in Spain), who spoke 
very bad Spanish. 

The most interesting of Eduardo Lopez' recollections 
of Borrow was that he " often recited a chant which nobody 
understood," and of which the old man could remember 
only the following fragment : — 

" Sed un la in la en la la 
Sino Mokhamente de resu la." 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th July 1838. 
8 This would have been impossible. If his age were seventy-four, 
he would of necessity have been four years old in 1838. 



xvii.] A FREE HAND 271 

It has been suggested, 1 and with every show of 
probability, that "this is the Moslem kalimah or creed 
which he had heard sung from the minarets " : 

" La illaha ilia allah 
Wa Muhammad rasoul allah." 

Borrow recognised that he must not stay very long in 
any one place, and accordingly it was his intention, as soon 
as he had supplied the immediate wants of the Sagra (the 
plain) of Toledo, " to cross the country to Aranjuez, and 
endeavour to supply with the Word the villages on the 
frontier of La Mancha." 2 As he was on the point of 
setting out, however, he received two letters from Mr 
Brandram, which decided him to return immediately to 
Madrid instead of pursuing his intended route. 

Borrow was informed that if, after consulting with 
Sir George Villiers, it was thought desirable that he 
should leave Madrid, he was given a free hand to do so. 
Furthermore, the President of the Bible Society (Lord 
Bexley), with whom Mr Brandram had consulted, was of 
the opinion that Borrow should return home to confer with 
the Committee. It was clear from the correspondence 
that nothing short of an interview could remove the very 
obvious feeling of irritation that existed between Borrow 
and the Society. In his reply (23rd July), Borrow showed 
a dignity and calmness of demeanour that had been 
lacking from his previous letters ; and it most likely 
produced a far more favourable effect at Earl Street than 
the impassioned protests of the past two months: — 

" My answer will be very brief," he wrote, " as I am 
afraid of giving way to my feelings ; I hope, however, 
that it will be to the purpose. 

"It is broadly hinted in yours of the 7th that I have 
made false statements in asserting that the Government, 
in consequence of what has lately taken place, had come 

1 By Mr A. G. Jayne in " Footprints of George Borrow," in The 
Bible in the World, July 1908. 

8 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th July 1838. 



272 A RECKLESS MISSIONARY [1838 

to the resolution of seizing the Bible depots in various 
parts of this country. [Borrow had written to Mr 
Brandram on 25th June, " The Society are already aware 
of the results of the visit of our friend to Malaga ; all 
their Bibles and Testaments having been seized through- 
out Spain, with the exception of my stock in Madrid."] 

"In reply I beg leave to inform you that by the first 
courier you will receive from the British Legation at 
Madrid the official notice from Count Ofalia to Sir George 
Villiers of the seizures already made, and the motives 
which induced the Government to have recourse to such a 
measure. 

" The following seizures have already been made, 
though some have not as yet been officially announced : — 
The Society's books at Orviedo, Pontevedra, Salamanca, 
Santiago, Seville, and Valladolid. 

"It appears from your letters that the depots in the 
South of Spain have escaped. I am glad of it, although 
it be at my own expense. I see the hand of the Lord 
throughout the late transactions. He is chastening me ; 
it is His pleasure that the guilty escape and the innocent 
be punished. The Government gave orders to seize the 
Bible depots throughout the country on account of the 
late scenes at Malaga and Valencia — I have never been 
there, yet only my depots are meddled with, as it appears ! 
The Lord's will be done, blessed be the name of the Lord ! 

" I will write again to-morrow, I shall have then arranged 
my thoughts, and determined on the conduct which it 
becomes a Christian to pursue under these circumstances. 
Permit me, in conclusion, to ask you : 

" Have you not to a certain extent been partial in this 
matter? Have you not, in the apprehension of being 
compelled to blame the conduct of one who has caused 
me unutterable anxiety, misery and persecution, and who 
has been the bane of the Bible cause in Spain, refused to 
receive the information which it was in your power to 
command ? I called on the Committee and yourself from 
the first to apply to Sir George Villiers ; no one is so 
well versed as to what has lately been going as himself; 
but no. It was God's will that I, who have risked all and 
lost almost all in the cause, be taunted, suspected, and the 
sweat of agony and tears which I have poured out be 
estimated at the value of the water of the ditch or the 
moisture which exudes from rotten dung ; but I murmur 



xvil] "I WILL NOT LEAVE SPAIN" 273 

not, and hope I shall at all times be willing to bow to the 
dispensations of the Almighty. 

" Sir George Villiers has returned to England for a 
short period ; you have therefore the opportunity of 
consulting him. / will not leave Spain until the whole 
affair has been thoroughly sifted. I shall then perhaps 
appear and bid you an eternal farewell. 1 Four hundred 
Testaments have been disposed of in the Sagra of Toledo. 

" P.S. — I am just returned from the Embassy, where 
I have had a long interview with that admirable person 
Lord Wm. Hervey [Charge d'Affaires during Sir George 
Villiers' absence]. He has requested me to write him a 
letter on the point in question, which with the official 
documents he intends to send to the Secretary of State in 
order to be laid before the Bible Society. He has put 
into my hands the last communication from Ofalia ; 2 it 
relates to the seizure of my depots at Malaga, Ponte- 
vedra, etc. I have not opened it, but send it for your 
approval." 

It is pleasant to record that the Sub-Committee 
expressed itself as unable to see in Mr Brandram's letter 

1 This letter, in which there was a hint of desperation, disturbed 
the officials at Earl Street a great deal. Mr Brandram wrote (28th 
July) that he was convinced that the Committee would " still feel that 
if you are to continue to act with them they must see you, and I will 
only add that it is utterly foreign to their wishes that you should expose 
yourself i?i the daring manner you are now doing. I lose not a post 
in conveying this impression to you." 

2 The Translation of this communication runs : — " Madrid, 7th July 
1838 — I have the honour to inform your Excellency that according to 
official advices received in the first Secretary of State's Office, it 
appears that in Malaga, Murcia, Valladolid, and Santiago, copies of 
the New Testament of Padre Scio, without notes, have been exposed 
for sale, which have been deposited with the political chiefs of the said 
provinces, or in the hands of such persons as the chiefs have entrusted 
with them in Deposit ; it being necessary further to observe that the 
parties giving them up have uniformly stated that they belonged to 
Mr Borrow, and that they were commissioned by him to sell and 
dispose of them. 

"Under these circumstances, Her Majesty's Government have 
deemed it expedient that I should address your Excellency, in order 

S 



274 A RECKLESS MISSIONARY [1838 

what Borrow saw. There was no intention to convey the 
impression that he had made false statements, and regret 
was expressed that he had thought it necessary to apply 
to the Embassy for confirmation of what he had written. 
All this Mr Brandram conveyed in a letter dated 6th 
August. He continues : " I am now in full possession of 
all that Mr Graydon has done, and find it utterly 
impossible to account for that very strong feeling that you 
have imbibed against him." 

On 20th July Mr Brandram had written that, after 
consulting with two or three members of the Committee, 
they all confirmed a wish already expressed that their 
Agent should not continue to expose himself to such 
dangers. If, however, he still saw the way open before 
him, 

" as so pleasantly represented in your letter . . . you need 
not think of returning. . . . Do allow me to suggest to 
you," he continues, "to drop allusion to Mr Graydon in 
your letters. His conduct is not regarded here as you 
regard it. I could fancy, but perhaps it is all fancy, that 
you have him in your eye when you tell us that you have 
eschewed handbills and advertisements. Time has been 
when you have used them plentifully. . . . Sir George 
Villiers is in England — but I do not know that we shall 
seek an interview with him — We are afraid of being 
hampered with the trammels of office." 

The Committee, however, did not endorse Mr 
Brandram's view as to Borrow continuing in Spain, and 
further, they did " not see it right," the secretary wrote 

that the above may be intimated to the beforementioned Mr Borrow, 
so that he may take care that the copies in question, as well as 
those which have been seized in this City, and which are packed up 
in cases or parcels marked and sealed, may be sent out of the 
Kingdom of Spain, agreeably to the Royal order with which your 
Excellency is already acquainted, and through the medium of the 
respective authorities who will be able to vouch for their Exportation. 
To this Mr Borrow will submit in the required form, and with the 
understanding that he formally binds himself thereto, they will remain 
in the meantime in the respective depots." 



xvii.] A FURTHER ENTERPRISE 275 

(6th August), "after the confidential communication in 
which you have been in with the Government, that you 
should be acting now in such open defiance of it, and 
putting yourself in such extreme jeopardy." Later Borrow 
made reference to the remark about the handbills. 

" It would have been as well," he wrote, " if my 
respected and revered friend, the writer, had made 
himself acquainted with the character of my advertise- 
ments before he made that observation. There is no harm 
in an advertisement, if truth, decency and the fear of God 
are observed, and I believe my own will be scarcely found 
deficient in any of these three requisites. It is not the use 
of a serviceable instrument, but its abuse that merits 
reproof, and I cannot conceive that advertising was abused 
by me when I informed the people of Madrid that the 
New Testament was to be purchased at a cheap price in 
the Calle del Principe." l 

Elsewhere he referred to these same advertisements as 
" mild yet expressive." 

In spite of the strained state of his relations with the 
Bible Society, Borrow had no intention of remaining in 
Madrid brooding over his wrongs. Encouraged by the 
success that had attended his efforts in the Sagra of 
Toledo, and indifferent to the fact that his renewed 
activity was known at Toledo, where it was causing some 
alarm, he determined to proceed to Aranjuez, and, on his 
arrival there, to be guided by events as to his future move- 
ments. Accordingly about 28th July he set out attended 
by Antonio and Lopez, who had accompanied him from 
Villa Seca to Madrid, proceeding in the direction of La 
Mancha, and selling at every village through which they 
passed from twenty to forty Testaments. At Aranjuez 
they remained three days, visiting every house in the town 
and disposing of about eighty books. It was no unusual 
thing to see groups of the poorer people gathered round 
one of their number who was reading aloud from a recently 
purchased Testament. 

1 General Report, withdrawn. 



276 A RECKLESS MISSIONARY [1838 

Feeling that his enemies were preparing to strike, 
Borrow determined to push on to the frontier town of 
Ocana, beyond which the clergy had only a nominal juris- 
diction on account of its being in the hands of the Carlists. 
Lopez was sent on with between two and three hundred 
Testaments, and Borrow, accompanied by Antonio, followed 
later by a shorter route through the hills. As they 
approached the town, a man, a Jew, stepped out from the 
porch of an empty house and barred their way, telling them 
that Lopez had been arrested at Ocana that morning as he 
was selling Testaments in the streets, and that the author- 
ities were now waiting for Borrow himself. 

Seeing that no good could be done by plunging into 
the midst of his enemies, who had their instructions from 
the corregidor of Toledo, Borrow decided to return to 
Aranjuez. This he did, on the way narrowly escaping 
assassination at the hands of three robbers. The next 
morning he was rejoined by Lopez, who had been released. 
He had sold 27 Testaments, and 200 had been confiscated 
and forwarded to Toledo. The whole party then returned 
to Madrid. 

The unfortunate affair at Ocana by no means dis- 
couraged Borrow. It was his intention "with God's 
leave " to " fight it out to the last." He saw that his only 
chance of distributing his store of Testaments lay in 
visiting the smaller villages before the order to confiscate 
his books arrived from Toledo. His enemies were 
" numerous and watchful " ; but Borrow was as cunning 
as a gypsy and as far-seeing as a Jew. Thinking that his 
notoriety had not yet crossed the Guadarrama mountains 
and penetrated into Old Castile, he decided to anticipate 
it. Lopez was sent ahead with a donkey bearing a cargo 
of Testaments, his instructions being to meet Borrow and 
Antonio at La Granja. Failing to find Lopez at the 
appointed place, Borrow pushed on to Segovia, where he 
received news that some men were selling books at Abades, 
to which place he proceeded with three more donkeys 



xvn.] "A CONTEST OF FIENDS" 277 

laden with books that had been consigned to a friend at 
Segovia. At Abades Lopez was discovered busily occupied 
in selling Testaments. 

Hearing that an order was about to be sent from 
Segovia to Abades for the confiscation of his Testaments, 
Borrow immediately left the town, donkeys, Testaments 
and all, and for safety's sake passed the night in the fields. 
The next day they proceeded to the village of Labajos. 
A few days after their arrival the Carlist leader Balmaceda, 
at the head of his robber cavalry, streamed down from the 
pine woods of Soria into the southern part of Old Castile, 
Borrow " was present at all the horrors which ensued — the 
sack of Arrevalo, and the forcible entry into Marrin 
Munoz and San Cyprian. Amidst these terrible scenes 
we continued our labours undaunted." * Fie witnessed 
what " was not the war of men or even cannibals ... it 
seemed a contest of fiends from the infernal pit." 
Antonio became seized with uncontrollable fear and 
ran away to Madrid. Lopez soon afterwards disap- 
peared, and, left alone, Borrow suffered great anxiety as 
to the fate of the brave fellow. Hearing that he was in 
prison at Vilallos, about three leagues distant, and in spite 
of the fact that Balmaceda's cavalry division was in the 
neighbourhood, Borrow mounted his horse and set off next 
day (22nd Aug.) alone. He found on his arrival at 
Vilallos, that Lopez had been removed from the prison 
to a private house. Disregarding an order from the 
corregidor of Avila that only the books should be con- 
fiscated and that the vendor should be set at liberty, the 
Alcalde, at the instigation of the priest, refused to liberate 
Lopez. It had been hinted to the unfortunate man that 
on the arrival of the Carlists he was to be denounced as a 
liberal, which would mean death. " Taking these circum- 
stances into consideration," Borrow wrote, 2 " I deemed it 

1 Borrow's letter to the Rev. A. Brandram, 1st Sept. 1838. 
- To Lord William Hervey, Charge d' Affaires at Madrid (23rd 
Aug. 1838). 



278 A RECKLESS MISSIONARY [1838 

my duty as a Christian and a gentleman to rescue my 
unfortunate servant from such lawless hands, and in 
consequence, defying opposition, I bore him off, though 
perfectly unarmed, through a crowd of at least one hundred 
peasants. On leaving the place I shouted ' Viva Isabella 
Segunda.' " 

In this affair Borrow had, not only the approval of 
Lord William Hervey, but of Count Ofalia also. In all 
probability the Bible Society has never had, and never 
will have again, an agent such as Borrow, who on occasion 
could throw aside the cloak of humility and grasp a two- 
edged sword with which to discomfit his enemies, and who 
solemnly chanted the creed of Islam whilst engaged as a 
Christian missionary. There was something magnificent 
in his Christianity ; it savoured of the Crusades in its 
pre-Reformation virility. Martyrdom he would accept if 
absolutely necessary ; but he preferred that if martyrs 
there must be they should be selected from the ranks of 
the enemy, whilst he, George Borrow, represented the 
strong arm of the Lord. 

After the Vilallos affair, Borrow returned to Madrid, 
crossing the Guadarramas alone and with two horses. " I 
nearly perished there," he wrote to Mr Brandram (ist Sept.), 
" having lost my way in the darkness and tumbled down a 
precipice." The perilous journey north had resulted in the 
sale of 900 Testaments, all within the space of three 
weeks and amidst scenes of battle and bloodshed. 

On his return to Madrid, Borrow found awaiting him 
the Resolution of the General Committee (6th Aug.), 
recalling him " without further delay." 

" I will set out for England as soon as possible," 
he wrote in reply ; x " but I must be allowed time. I am 
almost dead with fatigue, suffering and anxiety; and it 
is necessary that I should place the Society's property in 
safe and sure custody." 

1 To Rev. G. Browne, one of the Secretaries of the Bible Society, 
29th Aug. 1838. 



xvii.] CONFERENCES AT EARL STREET 279 

On 1st September he wrote to Mr Brandram that he 
should " probably be in England within three weeks." 
Shortly after this he was attacked with fever, and 
confined to his bed for ten days, during which he was 
frequently delirious. When the fever departed, he was 
left very weak and subject to a profound melancholy. 

" I bore up against my illness as long as I could," he 
wrote, 1 " but it became too powerful for me. By good 
fortune I obtained a decent physician, a Dr Hacayo, 
who had studied medicine in England, and aided by 
him and the strength of my constitution I got the better 
of my attack, which, however, was a dreadfully severe 
one. I hope my next letter will be from Bordeaux. I 
cannot write more at present, for I am very feeble." 

The actual date that Borrow left Madrid is not known. 
He himself gave it as 31st August, 2 which is obviously 
inaccurate, as on 19th September he wrote to Mr Brandram : 
" I am now better, and hope in a few days to be able to 
proceed to Saragossa, which is the only road open." He 
travelled leisurely by way of the Pyrenees, through France 
to Paris, where he spent a fortnight. Of Paris he was 
very fond; "for, leaving all prejudices aside, it is a 
magnificent city, well supplied with sumptuous build- 
ings and public squares, unequalled by any town in 
Europe." 3 Having bought a few rare books he proceeded 
to Boulogne, " and thence by steamboat to London," 4 
where in all probability he arrived towards the end of 
October. 

He had " long talks on Spanish affairs " 5 with his 
friends at Earl Street, where personal interviews seem 
to have brought about a much better feeling. The 
General Committee requested Borrow to put into 
writing his views as to the best means to be adopted 
for the future distribution of the Scriptures in Spain. He 

1 To Rev. A. Brandram, 19th September 1838. 

2 The Bible in Spain, page 621. 

3 Letter to Dr Usoz, 22nd Feb. 1839. 4 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 



280 A RECKLESS MISSIONARY [1838 

accordingly wrote a statement, 1 a fine, vigorous piece of 
narrative, putting his case so clearly and convincingly 
as to leave little to be said for the unfortunate Graydon. 
He expressed himself as " eager to be carefully and 
categorically questioned." This Report appears subse- 
quently to have been withdrawn, probably on the advice of 
Borrow's friends, who saw that its uncompromising blunt- 
ness of expression would make it unacceptable to the 
General Committee. It was certainly presented to and 
considered by the Sub-Committee. Another document 
was drawn up entitled, " Report of Mr Geo. Borrow on 
Past and Future Operations in Spain." This reached Earl 
Street on 28th November. In it Borrow states that as the 
inhabitants of the cities had not shown themselves well- 
disposed towards the Scriptures, it would be better to 
labour in future among the peasantry. It was his firm 
conviction, he wrote, 

" that every village in Spain will purchase New Testaments, 
from twenty to sixty, according to its circumstances. 
During the last two months of his sojourn in Spain 
he visited about forty villages, and in only two instances 
was his sale less than thirty copies in each. ... If 
it be objected to the plan which he has presumed to 
suggest that it is impossible to convey to the rural 
districts of Spain the book of life without much difficulty 
and danger, he begs leave to observe that it does not 
become a real Christian to be daunted by either when it 
pleases his Maker to select him as an instrument ; and 
that, moreover, if it be not written that a man is to 
perish by wild beasts or reptiles he is safe in the den even 
of the Cockatrice as in the most retired chamber of the 
King's Palace ; and that if, on the contrary, he be doomed 
to perish by them, his destiny will overtake him notwith- 
standing all the precautions which he, like a blind worm, 
may essay for his security." 

In conclusion Borrow calls attention, without suggesting 
intimate alliance and co-operation, to the society of the 

1 The Report has here been largely drawn upon and has been 
referred to as " Original Report, withdrawn. " 



xvii.] A TRIBUTE TO BORROW 281 

liberal-minded Spanish ecclesiastics, which has been formed 
for the purpose of printing and circulating the Scriptures 
in Spanish without commentary or- notes. This had reference 
to a movement that was on foot in Madrid, supported by 
the Primate and the Bishops of Vigo and Joen, to 
challenge the Government in regard to its attempt to 
prevent the free circulation of the Scriptures. It was held 
that nowhere among the laws of Spain is it forbidden to 
circulate the Scriptures either with or without annotations. 
The only prohibition being in the various Papal Bulls. 
Charles Wood was chosen as " the ostensible manager of 
the concern " ; but had it not been for the trouble in the 
South, Borrow would have been the person selected. 

It would have been in every way deplorable had 
Borrow severed his connection with the Bible Society as 
a result of the Graydon episode. Borrow had been 
impulsive and indignant in his letters to Earl Street, Mr 
Brandram, on the other hand, had been " a little partial," 
and on one or two occasions must have written hastily 
in response to Borrow's letters. There is no object in 
administering blame or directing reproaches when the 
principals in a quarrel have made up their differences ; 
but there can be no question that the failure of the Officials 
and Committee of the Bible Society to appreciate the 
situation in Spain retarded their work in that country very 
considerably. This fact is now generally recognised. Mr 
Canton has admirably summed up the situation when he 
says: 

" Borrow had his faults, but insincerity and lack of zeal 
in the cause he had espoused were not among them. Both 
Sir George Villiers and his successor [during Sir George's 
visit to England], Lord William Hervey, were satisfied 
with the propriety of his conduct. Count Ofalia himself 
recognised his good faith — ' cuia buena fe me es conocida? 
To see his plans thwarted, his work arrested, the objects of 
the Society jeopardised, and his own person endangered 
by the indiscretion of others, formed, if not a justification, 
at least a sufficient excuse for the expression of strong 



282 A RECKLESS MISSIONARY [1838 

feeling. On the other hand, it was difficult for those at 
home to ascertain the actual facts of the case, to under- 
stand the nicety of the situation, and to arrive at an 
impartial judgment. Mr Brandram, who in any case 
would have been displeased with Borrow's unrestrained 
speech, appears to have suspected that his statements 
were not free from exaggeration, and that his discretion 
was not wholly beyond reproach. Happily the tension 
caused by this painful episode was relieved by Lieut. 
Graydon's withdrawal to France in June." x 

1 History of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

DECEMBER 1838 — MAY 1839 

/^"\N 14th December 1838 it was resolved by the General 
^^ Committee of the Bible Society that Borrow should 
proceed once more to Spain to dispose of such copies of 
the Scriptures as remained on hand at Madrid and other 
depots established by him in various parts of the country. 
He left London on the 21st, and sailed from Falmouth two 
days later, reaching Cadiz on the 31st, after a stormy 
passage, and on 2nd January he arrived at Seville, " rather 
indisposed with an old complaint," probably "the 
Horrors." 

In such stirring times, to be absent from the country, 
even for so short a period as two months, meant that on 
his return the traveller found a new Spain. Borrow 
learned that the Duke of Frias had succeeded Count 
Ofalia in September. The Duke had advised the British 
Ambassador in November that the Spanish authorities 
were possessed of a quantity of Borrow's Bibles (? New 
Testaments) that had been seized and taken to Toledo, 
and that if arrangements were not made for them to be 
taken out of Spain they would be destroyed. Sir George 
Villiers had replied that Mr Borrow, who was then out of 
the country, had been advised of the Duke's notification, 
and as soon as word was received from him, the Duke 
should be communicated with. Then the Duke of Frias 
in turn passed out of office and was succeeded by another, 
and so, politically, change followed change. 

283 



284 SPANISH OFFICIAL METHODS [1839 

The Government, however, had no intention of putting 
itself in the wrong a second time. Great Britain's friend- 
ship was of far too great importance to the country to be 
jeopardised for the mere gratification of imprisoning 
George Borrow. An order had been sent out to all the 
authorities that an embargo was to be placed upon the 
books themselves ; but those distributing them were not 
to be arrested or in any way harmed. 

At Seville he found evidences of the activity of the 
Government in the news that of the hundred New Testa- 
ments that he had left with his correspondent there, 
seventy-six had been seized during the previous summer. 
Hearing that the books were in the hands of the 
Ecclesiastical Governor, Borrow astonished that " fierce, 
persecuting Papist by calling to make enquiries concerning 
them." The old man treated his visitor to a stream of 
impassioned invective against the Bible Society and its 
agent, expressing his surprise that he had ever been per- 
mitted to leave the prison in Madrid. Seeing that nothing 
was to be gained, although he had an absolute right to the 
books, provided he sent them out of the country, Borrow 
decided not to press the matter. 

On the night of 12th Jan. 1839, he left Seville with the 
Mail Courier and his escort bound for Madrid, where he 
arrived on the 16th without accident or incident, although 
the next Courier traversing the route was stopped by 
banditti. It was during this journey, whilst resting for 
four hours at Manzanares, a large village in La Mancha, 
that he encountered the blind girl who had been taught 
Latin by a Jesuit priest, and whom he named "the 
Manchegan Prophetess." 1 In telling Mr Brandram of 
the incident, Borrow tactlessly remarked, " what wonderful 
people are the Jesuits ; when shall we hear of an English 

1 On the publication of The Bible in Spain the Prophetess became 
famous. Thirty-six years later Dr Knapp found her still soliciting 
alms, and she acknowledged that she owed her celebrity to the 
Ingles rubio, the blonde Englishman. 



xviii.] A STRANGE DREAM 285 

rector instructing a beggar girl in the language of 
Cicero ? " Mr Brandram clearly showed that he liked 
neither the remark, which he took as personal, nor the use 
of the term " prophetess." 

On reaching Madrid a singular incident befell Borrow. 
On entering the arch of the posada called La Reyna, he 
found himself encircled by a pair of arms, and, on turning 
round, found that they belonged to the delinquent Antonio, 
who stood before his late master " haggard and ill-dressed, 
and his eyes seemed starting from their sockets." The 
poor fellow, who was entirely destitute, had, on the previous 
night, dreamed that he saw Borrow arrive on a black 
horse, and, in consequence, had spent the whole day in 
loitering about outside the posada. Borrow was very glad 
to engage him again, in spite of his recent cowardice and 
desertion. Borrow once more took up his abode with the 
estimable Maria Diaz, and one of his first cares was to call 
on Lord Clarendon (Sir George Villiers had succeeded his 
uncle as fourth earl), by whom he was kindly received. 

A week later, there arrived from Lopez at Villa Seca 
his "largest and most useful horse," the famous Sidi 
Habismilk (My Lord the Sustainer of the Kingdom), " an 
Arabian of high caste . . . the best, I believe, that ever 
issued from the desert," 1 Lopez wrote, regretting that he 
was unable to accompany " The Sustainer of the Kingdom " 
in person, being occupied with agricultural pursuits, but he 
sent a relative named Victoriano to assist in the work of 
distributing the Gospel. 

Borrow's plan was to make Madrid his headquarters, 
with Antonio in charge of the supplies, and visit all the 
villages and hamlets in the vicinity that had not yet been 
supplied with Testaments. He then proposed to turn 
eastward to a distance of about thirty leagues. 

" I have been very passionate in prayer," he writes, 2 
"during the last two or three days ; and I entertain some 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 627. 

'-' To Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Jan. 1839. 



286 SPANISH OFFICIAL METHODS [1839 

hope that the Lord has condescended to answer me, as I 
appear to see my way with considerable clearness. It 
may, of course, prove a delusion, and the prospects which 
seem to present themselves may be mere palaces of 
clouds, which a breath of wind is sufficient to tumble into 
ruin ; therefore bearing this possibility in mind it behoves 
me to beg that I may be always enabled to bow meekly 
to the dispensations of the Almighty, whether they be of 
favour or severity." 

Mr Brandram's comment on this portion of Borrow's 
letter is rather suggestive of deliberate fault-finding. 

" May your ' passionate ' prayers be answered," he 
writes. 1 " You see I remark your unusual word — very 
significant it is, but one rather fitted for the select circle 
where ' passion ' is understood in its own full sense — and 
not in the restricted meaning attached to it ordinarily. 
Perhaps you will not often meet with a better set of men 
than those who assembled in Earl Street, but they may 
not always be open to the force of language, and so 
unwonted a phrase may raise odd feelings in their minds. 
Do not be in a passion, will you, for the freedom of my 
remarks. You will perhaps suppose remarks were made 
in Committee. This does not happen to be the case, 
though I fully anticipated it. Mr Browne, Mr Jowett and 
myself had first privately devoured your letter, and we 
made our remarks. We could relish such a phrase." 

Sometimes there was a suggestion of spite in Mr 
Brandram's letters. He was obviously unfriendly towards 
Borrow during the latter portion of his agency. It was 
clear that the period of Borrow's further association with 
the Bible Society was to be limited. If he replied at all 
to this rather unfair criticism, he must have done so 
privately to Mr Brandram, as there is no record of his 
having referred to it in any subsequent letters among the 
Society's archives. 

All unconscious that he had so early offended, Borrow 
set out upon his first journey to distribute Testaments 
among the villages around Madrid. Dressed in the 
1 On 6th Feb. 1839. 



xviil] VICTORIANO IMPRISONED 287 

manner of the peasants, on his head a montera, a species 
of leathern helmet, with jacket and trousers of the same 
material, and mounted on Sidi Habismilk, he looked so 
unlike the conventional missionary that the housewife may 
be excused who mistook him for a pedlar selling soap. 

In some villages where the people were without money, 
they received Testaments in return for refreshing the 
missionaries. " Is this right ? " Borrow enquires of Mr 
Brandram. The village priests frequently proved of con- 
siderable assistance ; for when they pronounced the books 
good, as they sometimes did, the sale became extremely 
brisk. After an absence of eight days, Borrow returned to 
Madrid. Shortly afterwards, when on the eve of starting 
out upon another expedition to Guadalajara and the villages 
of Alcarria, he received a letter from Victoriano saying that 
he was in prison at Fuente la Higuera, a village about 
eight leagues distant. Acting with his customary energy 
and decision, Borrow obtained from an influential friend 
letters to the Civil Governor and principal authorities of 
Guadalajara. He then despatched Antonio to the rescue, 
with the result that Victoriano was released, with the 
assurance that those responsible for his detention should 
be severely punished. 

Whilst Victoriano was in prison, Borrow and Antonio 
had been very successful in selling Testaments and 
Bibles in Madrid, disposing of upwards of a hundred 
copies, but entirely to the poor, who " receive the Scrip- 
tures with gladness," although the hearts of the rich were 
hard. The work in and about Madrid continued until 
the middle of March, when Borrow decided to make an 
excursion as far as Talavera. The first halt was made 
at the village of Naval Carnero. Soon after his arrival 
orders came from Madrid warning the alcaldes of every 
village in New Castile to be on the look out for the tall, 
white-haired heretic, of whom an exact description was 
given, who to-day was in one place and to-morrow twenty 
leagues distant. No violence was to be offered either to 



288 SPANISH OFFICIAL METHODS [1839 

him or to his assistants ; but he and they were to be 
baulked in their purpose by every legitimate means. 

Foiled in the rural districts, Borrow instantly deter- 
mined to change his plan of campaign. He saw that he 
was less likely to attract notice in the densely-populated 
capital than in the provinces. He therefore galloped back 
to Madrid, leaving Victoriano to follow more leisurely. 
He rejoiced at the alarm of the clergy. " Glory to God ! " 
he exclaims, " they are becoming thoroughly alarmed, and 
with much reason." x The " reason " lay in the great 
demand for Testaments and Bibles. A new binding- 
order had to be given for the balance of the 500 Bibles 
that had arrived in sheets, or such as had been left of them 
by the rats, who had done considerable damage in the 
Madrid storehouse. 

It was at this juncture that Borrow's extensive 
acquaintance with the lower orders proved useful. 
Selecting eight of the most intelligent from among them, 
including five women, he supplied them with Testaments 
and instructions to vend the books in all the parishes of 
Madrid, with the result that in the course of about a 
fortnight 600 copies were disposed of in the streets 
and alleys. A house to house canvass was instituted 
with remarkable results, for manservant and maidservant 
bought eagerly of the books. Antonio excelled himself 
and made some amends for his flight from Labajos, when, 
like a torrent, the Carlist cavalry descended upon it. 
Dark Madrid was becoming illuminated with a flood of 
Scriptural light. In two of its churches the New Testa- 
ment was expounded every Sunday evening. Bibles were 
particularly in demand, a hundred being sold in about three 
weeks. The demand exceeded the supply. " The Marques 
de Santa Coloma," Borrow wrote, " has a large family, but 
every individual of it, old or young, is now in possession of 
a Bible and likewise of a Testament." 2 

1 Letter to Mr W. Hitchin of the Bible Society, 9th March 1839. 

2 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 26th March 1839. 



Xviii.] A MIDNIGHT VISITANT 289 

Borrow appears to have enlisted the aid of other 
distributors than the eight colporteurs. One of his most 
zealous agents was an ecclesiastic, who always carried 
with him beneath his gown a copy of the Bible, which he 
offered to the first person he encountered whom he 
thought likely to become a purchaser. Yet another 
assistant was found in a rich old gentleman of Navarre, 
who sent copies to his own province. 

One night after having retired to bed, Borrow received 
a visit from a curious, hobgoblin-like person, who gave him 
grave, official warning that unless he present himself before 
the corregidor on the morrow at eleven A.M., he must be 
prepared to take the consequences. The hour chosen for 
this intimation was midnight. On the next day at the 
appointed time Borrow presented himself before the 
corregidor, who announced that he wished to ask a question. 
The question related to a box of Testaments that Borrow 
had sent to Naval Carnero, which had been seized and 
subsequently claimed on Borrow's behalf by Antonio. In 
Spain they have the dramatic instinct If it strike the 
majestic mind of a corregidor at midnight that he would like 
to see a citizen or a stranger on the morrow about some 
trifling affair, time or place are not permitted to interfere 
with the conveyance of the intimation to the citizen or 
stranger to present himself before the gravely austere 
official, who will carry out the interrogation with a solemnity 
becoming a capital charge. 

By the middle of April barely a thousand Testaments 
remained ; these Borrow determined to distribute in Seville. 
Sending Antonio, the Testaments and two horses with the 
convoy, Borrow decided to risk travelling with the Mail 
Courier. For one thing, he disliked the slowness of a 
convoy, and for another the insults and irritations that 
travellers had to put up with from the escort, both 
officers and men. His original plan had been to pro- 
ceed by Estremadura ; but a band of Carlist robbers had 
recently made its appearance, murdering or holding at 

T 



290 SPANISH OFFICIAL METHODS [1839 

ransom every person who fell into its clutches. Borrow 
wrote : — 

" I therefore deem it wise to avoid, if possible, the alterna- 
tive of being shot or having to pay one thousand pounds 
for being set at liberty. ... It is moreover wicked to 
tempt Providence systematically. I have already thrust 
myself into more danger than was, perhaps, strictly 
necessary, and as I have been permitted hitherto to escape, 
it is better to be content with what it has pleased the Lord 
to do for me up to the present moment, than to run the 
risk of offending Him by a blind confidence in His forbear- 
ance, which may be over-taxed. As it is, however, at all 
times best to be frank, I am willing to confess that I am 
what the world calls exceedingly superstitious ; perhaps 
the real cause of my change of resolution was a dream, 
in which I imagined myself on a desolate road in the 
hands of several robbers, who were hacking me with their 
long, ugly knives." 1 

In the same letter, which was so to incur Mr Brandram's 
disapproval, Borrow tells of the excellent results of his 
latest plan for disposing of Bibles and Testaments, three 
hundred and fifty of the former having been sold since he 
reached Spain. He goes on to explain and expound the 
difficulties that have been met and overcome, and hopes 
that his friends at Earl Street will be patient, as it 
may not be in his power to send " for a long time any 
flattering accounts of operations commenced there." In 
conclusion, he assures Mr Brandram that from the Church 
of Rome he has learned one thing, " Ever to expect evil, and 
ever to hope for good." 

Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the 
effect produced upon Mr Brandram's mind by this letter. 

" I scarcely know what to say," he writes. " You are in a 
very peculiar country ; you are doubtless a man of very 
peculiar temperament, and we must not apply common 
rules in judging either of yourself or your affairs. What, 
e.g., shall we say to your confession of a certain super- 
stitiousness? It is very frank of you to tell us what you 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, ioth April 1839. 



xvin.] A LAPSE 291 

need not have told ; but it sounded very odd when read 
aloud in a large Committee. Strangers that know you 
not would carry away strange ideas. ... In bespeaking 
our patience, there is an implied contrast between your 
own mode of proceeding and that adopted by others — a 
contrast this a little to the disadvantage of others, and 
savouring a little of the praise of a personage called 
number one. . . . Perhaps my vanity is offended, and I 
feel as if I were not esteemed a person of sufficient discern- 
ment to know enough of the real state of Spain. . . . 

" Bear with me now in my criticisms on your second 
letter [that of 2nd May]. You narrate your perilous 
journey to Seville, and say at the beginning of the 
description : ' My usual wonderful good fortune accom- 
panying us.' This is a mode of speaking to which we are 
not well accustomed ; it savours, some of our friends would 
say, a little of the profane. Those who know you will not 
impute this to you. But you must remember that our 
Committee Room is public to a great extent, and I cannot 
omit expressions as I go reading on. Pious sentiments 
may be thrust into letters ad nauseam, and it is not for 
that I plead ; but is there not a via media ? " We are odd 
people, it may be, in England ; we are not fond of prophets 
or ' prophetesses ' [a reference to her of La Mancha about 
whom Borrow had previously been rebuked]. I have not 
turned back to your former description of the lady whom 
you have a second time introduced to our notice. Perhaps 
my wounded pride had not been made whole after the 
infliction you before gave it by contrasting the teacher of 
the prophetess with English rectors." 

Borrow replied to this letter from Seville on 28th June, 
and there are indications that before doing so he took 
time to deliberate upon it. 

" Think not, I pray you," he wrote, " that any observa- 
tion of yours respecting style, or any peculiarities of 
expression which I am in the habit of exhibiting in my 
correspondence, can possibly awaken in me any feeling 
but that of gratitude, knowing so well as I do the person 
who offers them, and the motives by which he is 
influenced. I have reflected on those passages which 
you were pleased to point out as objectionable, and have 
nothing to reply further than that I have erred, that I am 



292 SPANISH OFFICIAL METHODS [1839 

sorry, and will endeavour to mend, and that, moreover, 
I have already prayed for assistance to do so. Allow me, 
however, to offer a word, not in excuse but in explanation 
of the expression ' wonderful good fortune ' which 
appeared in a former letter of mine. It is clearly 
objectionable, and, as you very properly observe, savours 
of pagan times. But I am sorry to say that I am much 
in the habit of repeating other people's sayings without 
weighing their propriety. The saying was not mine ; but 
I heard it in conversation and thoughtlessly repeated it. 
A few miles from Seville I was telling the Courier of the 
many perilous journeys which I had accomplished in 
Spain in safety, and for which I thank the Lord. His 
reply was, ' La mucha suerte de Usted tambien nos ha 
acompanado en este viage.' " 

Thus ended another unfortunate misunderstanding 
between secretary and agent. 

Borrow had taken considerable risk in making the 
journey to Seville with the Courier. The whole of La 
Mancha was overrun with the Carlist-banditti, who, 
"whenever it pleases them, stop the Courier, burn the 
vehicle and letters, murder the paltry escort which 
attends, and carry away any chance passenger to the 
mountains, where an enormous ransom is demanded, 
which if not paid brings on the dilemma of four shots 
through the head, as the Spaniards say." The Courier's 
previous journey over the same route had ended in the 
murder of the escort and the burning of the coach, the 
Courier himself escaping through the good offices of one 
of the bandits, who had formerly been his postilion. 
Borrow was shown the blood-soaked turf and the skull 
of one of the soldiers. At Manzanares, Borrow invited 
to breakfast with him the Prophetess who was so 
unpopular at Earl Street. Continuing the journey, he 
reached Seville without mishap, and a few days later 
Antonio arrived with the horses. It was found that the 
two cases of Testaments that had been forwarded from 
Madrid had been stopped at the Seville Customs House, 



xviii.] A QUESTION OF EXPEDIENCY 293 

and Borrow had recourse to subterfuge in order to get 
them and save his journey from being in vain. 

" For a few dollars," he tells Mr Brandram (2nd May), 
" I procured a fiador or person who engaged that the chests 
should be carried down the river and embarked at San 
Lucar for a foreign land. Yesterday I hired a boat and 
sent them down, but on the way I landed in a secure place all 
the Testaments which I intend for this part of the country." 

The fiador had kept to the letter of his undertaking, 
and the chests were duly delivered at San Lucar ; but a 
considerable portion of their contents, some two hundred 
Testaments, had been abstracted, and these had to be 
smuggled into Seville under the cloaks of master and 
servant. The officials appear to have treated Borrow with 
the greatest possible courtesy and consideration, and they 
told him that his " intentions were known and honored." 

Borrow had great hopes of achieving something for the 
Gospel's sake in Seville ; but the operation would be a 
delicate one. To Mr Brandram he wrote : — 

" Consider my situation here. I am in a city by 
nature very Levitical, as it contains within it the most 
magnificent and splendidly endowed cathedral of any in 
Spain. I am surrounded by priests and friars, who know 
and hate me, and who, if I commit the slightest act of 
indiscretion, will halloo their myrmidons against me. The 
press is closed to me, the libraries are barred against me, 
I have no one to assist me but my hired servant, no pious 
English families to comfort or encourage me, the British 
subjects here being ranker papists and a hundred times more 
bigoted than the Spanish themselves, the Consul, a renegade 
Quaker. Yet notwithstanding, with God's assistance, I 
will do much, though silently, burrowing like the mole in 
darkness beneath the ground. Those who have triumphed 
in Madrid, and in the two Castiles, where the difficulties 
were seven times greater, are not to be dismayed by 
priestly frowns at Seville." l 

On arriving at Seville Borrow had put up at the Posada 
de la Reyna, in the Calle Gimios, and here on 4th May (he 
1 Letter to the Rev. A. Brandram, 2nd May 1839. 



294 SPANISH OFFICIAL METHODS [1839 

had arrived about 24th April) he encountered Lieut- 
Colonel Elers Napier. Borrow liked nothing so well as 
appearing in the role of a mysterious stranger. He loved 
mystery as much as a dramatic moment His admiration 
of Baron Taylor was largely based upon the innumerable 
conjectures as to who it was that surrounded his puzzling 
personality with such an air of mystery. That May 
morning Colonel Napier, who was also staying at the 
Posada de la Reyna, was wandering about the galleries 
overlooking the patio. He writes : — 

" whilst occupied in moralising over the dripping water 
spouts, I observed a tall, gentlemanly-looking man dressed 
in a semarra \2amarra, a sheepskin jacket with the wool out- 
side] leaning over the balustrades and apparently engaged 
in a similar manner with myself. . . . From the stranger's 
complexion, which was fair, but with brilliant black eyes, I 
concluded he was not a Spaniard ; in short, there was 
something so remarkable in his appearance that it was 
difficult to say to what nation he might belong. He was 
tall, with a commanding appearance ; yet, though appar- 
ently in the flower of manhood, his hair was so deeply 
tinged with the winter of either age or sorrow as to be 
nearly snow white." 1 

Colonel Napier was thoroughly mystified. The 
stranger answered his French in " the purest Parisian 
Accent " ; yet he proved capable of speaking fluent English, 
of giving orders to his Greek servant in Romaic, of con- 
versing " in good Castillian with ' mine host,' " and of 
exchanging salutations in German with another resident 
at the fonda. Later the Colonel had the gratification of 
startling the Unknown by replying to some remark of his 
in Hindi ; but only momentarily, for he showed himself 
" delighted on finding I was an Indian, and entered freely, 
and with depth and acuteness, on the affairs of the East, 
most of which part of the world he had visited." 2 

1 Excursions Along the Shores of the Mediterranean, by Lt.-Col. 
E. Napier, 46th Regt. Colburn, 1842, 2 vols. 

2 Ibid. 



xviii.] THE BEAUTIFUL GYPSY 295 

No one could give any information about " the 
mysterious Unknown," who or what he was, or why he 
was travelling. It was known that the police entertained 
suspicions that he was a Russian spy, and kept him under 
strict observation. Whatever else he was, Colonel Napier 
found him " a very agreeable companion." 1 

On the following morning (a Sunday) Colonel Napier 
and his Unknown set out on horseback on an excursion 
to the ruins of Italica. As they sat on a ruined wall of 
the Convent of San Isidoro, contemplating the scene of 
ruin and desolation around, " the ' Unknown ' began to feel 
the vein of poetry creeping through his inward soul, and 
gave vent to it by reciting with great emphasis and effect " 
some lines that the scene called up to his mind. 

" I had been too much taken up with the scene," Colonel 
Napier continues, " the verses, and the strange being who 
was repeating them with so much feeling, to notice the 
approach of a slight female figure, beautiful in the extreme, 
but whose tattered garments, raven hair, swarthy com- 
plexion and flashing eyes proclaimed to be of the wander- 
ing tribe of Gitanos, From an intuitive sense of politeness, 
she stood with crossed arms and a slight smile on her dark 
and handsome countenance until my companion had 
ceased, and then addressed us in the usual whining tone of 
supplication — ' Caballeritos, una limosnita ! Dios se la 
pagard a ustedes I ' — ' Gentlemen, a little charity ; God will 
repay it to you ! ' The gypsy girl was so pretty and her 
voice so sweet, that I involuntarily put my hand in my 
pocket. 

" ' Stop ! ' said the Unknown. ' Do you remember what 
I told you about the Eastern origin of these people ? You 
shall see I am correct.' — ' Come here, my pretty child,' 
said he in Moultanee, ' and tell me where are the rest of 
your tribe.' 

" The girl looked astounded, replied in the same tongue, 
but in broken language ; when, taking him by the arm, 
she said in Spanish, ' Come, cabellero — come to one who 
will be able to answer you ' ; and she led the way down 

1 Excursions Along the Shores of the Mediterranean, by Lt.-Col. 
E. Napier, 46th Regt. Colburn, 1842, 2 vols. 



296 SPANISH OFFICIAL METHODS [1839 

amongst the ruins, towards one of the dens formerly 
occupied by the wild beasts, and disclosed to us a set of 
beings scarcely less savage. The sombre walls of the 
gloomy abode were illumined by a fire the smoke from 
which escaped through a deep fissure in the mossy roof; 
whilst the flickering flames threw a blood-red glare on the 
bronzed features of a group of children, of two men, and 
a decrepit old hag, who appeared busily engaged in some 
culinary preparations. 

" On our entrance, the scowling glance of the males of 
the party, and a quick motion of the hand towards the 
folds of the ' faja ' [a sash in which the Spaniard carries a 
formidable clasp-knife] caused in me, at least, anything 
but a comfortable sensation ; but their hostile intentions, 
if ever entertained, were immediately removed by a wave 
of the hand from our conductress, who, leading my com- 
panion towards the sibyl, whispered something in her ear. 
The old crone appeared incredulous. The ' Unknown ' 
uttered one word ; but that word had the effect of magic ; 
she prostrated herself at his feet, and in an instant, from 
an object of suspicion he became one of worship to the 
whole family, to whom, on taking leave, he made a 
handsome present, and departed with their united bless- 
ings, to the astonishment of myself and what looked very 
like terror in our Spanish guide. 

" I was, as the phrase goes, dying with curiosity, and as 
soon as we mounted our horses, exclaimed — ' Where, in the 
name of goodness, did you pick up your acquaintance with 
the language of those extraordinary people ? ' 

" ' Some years ago, in Moultan,' he replied. 

"'And by what means do you possess such apparent 
influence over them ? ' But the ' Unknown ' had already 
said more than he perhaps wished on the subject. He 
drily replied that he had more than once owed his life to 
gypsies, and had reason to know them well ; but this was 
said in a tone which precluded all further queries on my 
part. The subject was never again broached, and we 
returned in silence to the fonda. . . . This is a most extra- 
ordinary character, and the more I see of him the more 
am I puzzled. He appears acquainted with everybody 
and everything, but apparently unknown to every one 
himself. Though his figure bespeaks youth — and by his 
own account his age does not exceed thirty [he would be 
thirty-six in the following July] — yet the snows of eighty 



xviil] "A SECOND MELMOTH* 297 

winters could not have whitened his locks more completely 
than they are. But in his dark and searching eye there is 
an almost supernatural penetration and lustre, which, were 
I inclined to superstition, might induce me to set down its 
possessor as a second Melmoth." i 

1 A reference to Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, 
4 vols., 1820. This book was republished in 3 vols, in 1892, an almost 
unparalleled instance of the reissue of a practically forgotten book' in 
a form closely resembling that of the original. Melmoth the 
Wanderer was referred to in the most enthusiastic terms by Balzac, 
Thackeray and Baudelaire among others. 



CHAPTER XIX 

MAY — DECEMBER 1 839 

T30RR0W confesses that he was at a loss to know how 
-*-* to commence operations in Seville. He was entirely 
friendless, even the British Consul being unapproachable 
on account of his religious beliefs. However, he soon 
gathered round him some of those curious characters who 
seemed always to gravitate towards him, no matter where 
he might be, or with what occupied. Surely the Scriptures 
never had such a curious assortment of missionaries as 
Borrow employed ? At Seville there was the gigantic 
Greek, Dionysius of Cephalonia ; the " aged professor of 
music, who, with much stiffness and ceremoniousness, 
united much that was excellent and admirable"; 1 the 
Greek bricklayer, Johannes Chysostom, a native of Morea, 
who might at any time become " the Masaniello of 
Seville." With these assistants Borrow set to work to 
throw the light of the Gospel into the dark corners of the 
city. 

Soon after arriving at Seville, he decided to adopt a 
new plan of living. 

" On account of the extreme dearness of every article 
at the posada" he wrote to Mr Brandram on 12th June, 
" where, moreover, I had a suspicion that I was being 
watched [this may have reference to the police suspicion 
that he was a Russian spy], I removed with my servant 
and horses to an empty house in a solitary part of the 

1 The Bible in Spain, page 663. 



xix] BORROW TAKES A HOUSE 299 

town. . . . Here I live in the greatest privacy, admit- 
ting no person but two or three in whom I had the 
greatest confidence, who entertain the same views as 
myself, and who assist me in the circulation of the Gospel." 

The house stood in a solitary situation, occupying one 
side of the Plazuela de la Pila Seca (the Little Square of 
the Empty Trough). It was a two-storied building and 
much too large for Borrow's requirements. Having bought 
the necessary articles of furniture, he retired behind the 
shutters of his Andalusian mansion with Antonio and 
the two horses. He lived in the utmost seclusion, 
spending a large portion of his time in study or in dreamy 
meditation. " The people here complain sadly of the 
heat," he writes to Mr Brandram (28th June 1839), "but 
as for myself, I luxuriate in it, like the butterflies which 
hover about the maeetas, or flowerpots, in the court." In 
the cool of the evening he would mount Sidi Habismilk 
and ride along the Dehesa until the topmost towers of the 
city were out of sight, then, turning the noble Arab, he 
would let him return at his best speed, which was that of 
the whirlwind. 

Throughout his work in Spain Borrow had been 
seriously handicapped by being unable to satisfy the 
demand for Bibles that met him everywhere he went. In 
a letter (June) from Maria Diaz, who was acting as his 
agent in Madrid, 1 the same story is told. 

" The binder has brought me eight Bibles," she writes, 
" which he has contrived to make up out of the sheets 
gnawn by the rats, and which would have been necessary 
even had they amounted to eight thousand (y era 
necesario se puvieran vuelto 8000), because the people are 

1 Maria Diaz had written on 24th May : "Calzado has been here 
to see if I would sell him the lamps that belong to the shop [the 
Despacho\ He is willing to give four dollars for them, and he says 
they cost five, so if you want me to sell them to him, you must let me 
know. It seems he is going to set up a beer-shop." It is not on 
record whether or no the lamps from the Bible Society's Despacho 
eventually illuminated a beer-shop. 



300 A STRANGE MENAGE [1839 

innumerable who come to seek more. Don Santiago has 
been here with some friends, who insisted upon having a 
part of them. The Aragonese Gentleman has likewise 
been, he who came before your departure, and bespoke 
twenty-four ; he now wants twenty-five. I begged them 
to take Testaments, but they would not." 1 

The Greek bricklayer proved a most useful agent. 
His great influence with his poor acquaintances resulted 
in the sale of many Testaments. More could have been 
done had it not been necessary to proceed with extreme 
caution, lest the authorities should take action and seize 
the small stock of books that remained. 

When he took and furnished the large house in the 
little square, there had been in Borrow's mind another 
reason than a desire for solitude and freedom from prying 
eyes. Throughout his labours in Spain he had kept up 
a correspondence with Mrs Clarke of Oulton, who, on 15th 
March, had written informing him of her intention to take 
up her abode for a short time at Seville. 

For some time previously Mrs Clarke had been having 
trouble about her estate. Her mother (September 1835) 
and father (February 1836) were both dead, and her 
brother Breame had inherited the estate and she the 
mortgage together with the Cottage on Oulton Broad. 
Breame Skepper died (May 1837), leaving a wife and six 
children. In his will he had appointed Trustees, who 
demanded the sale of the Estate and division of the 
money, which was opposed by Mrs Clarke as executrix 
and mortgagee. Later it was agreed between the parties 
that the Estate should be sold for £1 1,000 to a Mr Joseph 
Cator Webb, and an agreement to that effect was signed. 
Anticipating that the Estate would increase in value, and 
apparently regretting their bargain, the Trustees delayed 
carrying out their undertaking, and Mr Webb filed a bill 
in Chancery to force them to do so. Mrs Clarke's legal 
advisers thought it better that she should disappear for a 
1 Letter from Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 28th June 1839. 



xix.] THE ARRIVAL OF MRS CLARKE 301 

time. Hence her letter to Borrow, in replying to which 
(29th March), he expresses pleasure at the news of his 
friend's determination " to settle in Seville for a short 
time — which, I assure you, I consider to be the most 
agreeable retreat you can select ... for there the growls 
of your enemies will scarcely reach you." He goes on to 
tell her that he laughed outright at the advice of her 
counsellor not to take a house and furnish it. 

" Houses in Spain are let by the day : and in a palace 
here you will find less furniture than in your cottage at 
Oulton. Were you to furnish a Spanish house in the 
style of cold, wintry England, you would be unable to 
breathe. A few chairs, tables, and mattresses are all that 
is required, with of course a good stock of bed-linen. . . . 

" Bring with you, therefore, your clothes, plenty of 
bed-linen, etc., half-a-dozen blankets, two dozen knives 
and forks, a mirror or two, twelve silver table spoons, and 
a large one for soup, tea things and urn (for the Spaniards 
never drink tea), a few books, but not many, — and you 
will have occasion for nothing more, or, if you have, you 
can purchase it here as cheap as in England." 

Borrow's ideas of domestic comfort were those of the 
old campaigner. For all that, he showed himself very 
thorough in the directions he gave as to how and where 
Mrs Clarke should book her passage and obtain " a pass- 
port for yourself and Hen." (Henrietta her daughter, now 
nearly twenty years of age), and the warning he gave 
that no attempt should be made to go ashore at Lisbon, 
" a very dangerous place." 

On 7th June Mrs Clarke and her daughter Henrietta 
sailed from London on board the steam-packet Royal Tar 
bound for Cadiz, where they arrived on the 16th, and, on the 
day following, entered into possession of their temporary 
home where Borrow was already installed, safe for the 
time from Mr Webb's Chancery bill. It was no doubt to 
Mrs and Miss Clarke that Borrow referred when he wrote 
to Mr Brandram x saying that "two or three ladies of my 

1 28th June. 



302 A STRANGE MENAGE [1839 

acquaintance occasionally dispose of some [Testaments] 
amongst their friends, but they say that they experience 
some difficulty, the cry for Bibles being great." 

Borrow continued to reside at 7 Plazuela de la Pila 
Seca, and Mrs Clarke and Henrietta soon learned some- 
thing of the vicissitudes and excitements of a missionary's 
life. On Sunday, 8th July, as Borrow "happened to be 
reading the Liturgy," he received a visit from "various 
alguacils, headed by the Alcalde del Barrio, or headborough, 
who made a small seizure of Testaments and Gypsy 
Gospels which happened to be lying about." l This 
circumstance convinced Borrow of the good effect of his 
labours in and around Seville. 

The time had now arrived, however, when the whole of 
the smuggled Testaments had been disposed of, and there 
was no object in remaining longer in Seville, or in Spain 
for that matter. There were books at San Lucar that 
might without official opposition be shipped out of the 
country, and Borrow therefore determined to see what 
could be done towards distributing them among the 
Spanish residents on the Coast of Barbary. This done, 
he hoped to return to Spain and dispose of the 900 
odd Testaments lying at Madrid. On 18th July he 
wrote to Mr Brandram : — 

" I should wish to be permitted on my return from my 
present expedition to circulate some in La Mancha. . . . 
The state of that province is truly horrible ; it appears 
peopled partly with spectres and partly with demons. 
There is famine, and such famine ; there is assassination 
and such unnatural assassination [another of Borrow's 
phrases that must have struck the Committee as odd]. 
There you see soldiers and robbers, ghastly lepers and 
horrible and uncouth maimed and blind, exhibiting 
their terrible nakedness in the sun. I was prevented 
last year in carrying the Gospel amongst them. May 
I be more successful this." 

Antonio had been dismissed, his master being "com- 
1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 18th July 1839. 



xix.] AN INSTINCTIVE MISSIONARY 303 

pelled to send [him] back to Madrid ... on account of his 
many irregularities," and in consequence it was alone, on 
the night of 31st July, that Borrow set out upon his 
expedition. From Seville he took the steamer to Bonanza, 
from whence he drove to San Lucar, where he picked up a 
chest of New Testaments and a small box of St Luke's 
Gospel in Gitano, with a pass for them to Cadiz. It proved 
expensive, this claiming of his own property, for at every 
step there was some fee to be paid or gratuity to be given. 
The last payment was made to the Spanish Consul at 
Gibraltar, who claimed and received a dollar for certifying 
the arrival of books he had not seen. 

Borrow was instinctively a missionary, even a great 
missionary. At the Customs House of San Lucar some 
questions were asked about the books contained in the 
cases, and he seized the occasion to hold an informal 
missionary meeting, with the officials clustered round him 
listening to his discourse. One of the cases had to be 
opened for inspection, and the upshot of it was that, to 
the very officials whose duty it was to see that the books 
were not distributed in Spain, Borrow sold a number of 
copies, not only of the Spanish Testament, but of the 
Gypsy St Luke. Such was the power of his personality 
and the force of his eloquence. 

From San Lucar Borrow returned to Bonanza and 
again took the boat, which landed him at Cadiz, where he 
was hospitably entertained by Mr Brackenbury, the British 
Consul, who gave him a letter of introduction to Mr 
Drummond Hay, the Consul-General at Tangier. On 4th 
August he proceeded to Gibraltar. It was not until the 
8th, however, that he was able to cross to Tangier, where 
he was kindly received by Mr Hay, who found for him a 
very comfortable lodging. 

Taking the Consul's advice, Borrow proceeded with 
extreme caution. For the first fortnight of his stay he 
made no effort to distribute his Testaments, contenting 
himself with studying the town and its inhabitants, 



[1839 

304 A STRANGE MENAGE 

occasionally speaking to the Christians in the place 
(principally Spanish and Genoese sailors and their 
families) about religious matters, but always with the 
greatest caution lest the two or three friars, who resided at 
what was known as the Spanish Convent, should become 
alarmed. Again Borrow obtained the services of a curious 
assistant, a Jewish lad named Hayim Ben Attar, who 
carried the Testaments to the people's houses and offered 
them for sale, and this with considerable success. On 4th 
September Borrow wrote to Mr Brandram : — 

" The blessed book is now in the hands of most of the 
Christians of Tangier, from the lowest to the highest, from 
the fisherman to the consul. One dozen and a half were 
carried to Tetuan on speculation, a town about six leagues 
from hence ; they will be offered to the Christians who 
reside there. Other two dozen are on their way to distant 
Mogadore. One individual, a tavern keeper, has purchased 
Testaments to the number of thirty, which he says he has 
no doubt he can dispose of to the foreign sailors who stop 
occasionally at his house. You will be surprised to hear 
that several amongst the Jews have purchased copies of 
the New Testament with the intention, as they state, of 
improving themselves in Spanish, but I believe from 
curiosity." 

During his stay in Tangier, Borrow had some trouble 
with the British Vice-Consul, who seems to have made 
himself extremely offensive with his persistent offers of 
service. His face was " purple and blue " and in whose 
blood-shot eyes there was an expression " much like that 
of a departed tunny fish or salmon," and he became so 
great an annoyance that Borrow made a complaint to 
Mr Drummond Hay. This is one of the few instances 
of Borrow's experiencing difficulty with an)' British 
official, for, as a rule, he was extremely popular. In 
this particular instance, however, the Vice-Consul was so 
obviously seeking to make profit out of his official position, 
that there was no other means open to Borrow than to 
make a formal complaint. 



xix.] BACK IN SPAIN 305 

In the case of Mr Drummond Hay, he obtained the 
friendship of a "true British gentleman." At first the 
Consul had been reserved and distant, and apparently by 
no means inclined to render Borrow any service in the 
furtherance of his mission ; but a few days sufficed to 
bring him under the influence of Borrow's personal 
magnetism, and he ended by assuring him that he would 
be happy to receive the Society's commands, and would 
render all possible assistance, officially or otherwise, to the 
distribution of the Scriptures "in Fez or Morocco." 

Borrow was thoroughly satisfied with the result of his 
five weeks' stay in Tangier. He reached Cadiz on his 
way to Seville on 21st Sept., after undergoing a four 
days' quarantine at Tarifa, when he wrote to Mr Brandram 
(29th Sept.) : 

" I am very glad that I went to Tangier, for many 
reasons. In the first place, I was permitted to circulate 
many copies of God's Word both among the Jews and 
the Christians, by the latter of whom it was particularly 
wanted, their ignorance of the most vital points of religion 
being truly horrible. In the second place, I acquired a 
vast stock of information concerning Africa and the state 
of its interior. One of my principal Associates was a 
black slave whose country was only three days' journey 
from Timbuctoo, which place he had frequently visited. 
The Soos men also told me many of the secrets of the 
land of wonders from which they come, and the Rabbis 
from Fez and Morocco were no less communicative." 

Borrow had started upon his expedition to the 
Barbary Coast without any definite instructions from Earl 
Street. On 29th July the Sub-Committee had resolved 
that as his mission to Spain was " nearly attained by the 
disposal of the larger part of the Spanish Scriptures which 
he went out to distribute," the General Committee be 
recommended to request him to take measures for selling 
or placing in safe custody all copies remaining on hand 
and returning to England " without loss of time." This 
was adopted on 5th Aug. ; but before it received the 

u 



306 A STRANGE MENAGE [1839 

formal sanction of the General Committee Mr Browne 
had written (29th July) to Borrow acquainting him 
with the feeling of the Sub-Committee, thinking that he 
ought to have early intimation of what was taking place. 
This letter Borrow found awaiting him at Cadiz on his 
return from Tangier. He replied immediately (21st Sept.) : 

" Had I been aware of that resolution before my 
departure for Tangier I certainly should not have gone ; 
my expedition, however, was the result of much reflection. 
I wished to carry the Gospel to the Christians of the 
Barbary shore, who were much in want of it ; and I had 
one hundred and thirty Testaments at San Lucar, which 
I could only make available by exportation. The success 
which it has pleased the Lord to yield me in my humble 
efforts at distribution in Barbary will, I believe, prove the 
best criterion as to the fitness of the enterprise. 

" I stated in my last communication to Mr Brandram 
the plan which I conceived to be the best for circulating 
that portion of the edition of the New Testament which 
remains unsold at Madrid, and I scarcely needed a 
stimulant in the execution of my duty. At present, 
however, I know not what to do ; I am sorrowful, dis- 
appointed and unstrung. 

" I wish to return to England as soon as possible ; but 
I have books and papers at Madrid which are of much 
importance to me and which I cannot abandon, this 
perhaps alone prevents me embarking in the next packet. 
I have, moreover, brought with me from Tangier the 
Jewish youth [Hayim Ben Attar], who so powerfully 
assisted me in that place in the work of distribution. 
I had hoped to have made him of service in Spain, he is 
virtuous and clever. . . . 

" I am almost tempted to ask whether some strange, 
some unaccountable delusion does not exist : what should 
induce me to stay in Spain, as you appear to suppose 
I intend ? I may, however, have misunderstood you. 
I wish to receive a fresh communication as soon as 
possible, either from yourself or Mr Brandram ; in the 
meantime I shall go to Seville, to which place and to 
the usual number pray direct." 

It would appear that the Bible Society had become 



xix.] LORD PALMERSTON INTERVENES 307 

aware of Borrow's minage at Seville, and concluded that 
he meant to take up his abode in Spain more or less 
permanently. 

Borrow's next plan was to order a chest of Testaments 
to be sent to La Mancha, where he had friends, then to 
mount his horse and proceed there in person. With the 
assistance of his Jewish body-servant he hoped to circu- 
late many copies before the authorities became aware of 
his presence. Later he would proceed to Madrid, put 
his affairs in order, and make for France by way of 
Saragossa (where he hoped to accomplish some good), and 
then — home. 

In September a circular signed by Lord Palmerston 
was received by all the British Consuls in Spain, strictly 
forbidding them " to afford the slightest countenance to 
religious agents. 1 What was the cause of this last 
blow ? " 2 Borrow rather unfortunately enquired of Mr 
Brandram. The Consul at Cadiz, Mr Brackenbury, 
explained it, according to Borrow, as due to " an ill- 
advised application made to his Lordship to interfere 
with the Spanish Government on behalf of a certain 
individual 3 [Lieut. Graydon] whose line of conduct needs 
no comment." 4 After pointing out that once the same 
consuls had received from a British Ambassador instruc- 

1 Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1839. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Mr John M. Brackenbury, in writing to Mr Brandram, made it 
quite clear that he had no doubt that the " inhibition was assuredly 
accelerated, if not absolutely occasioned, by the indiscretion of some 
of those who entered Spain for the avowed object of circulating the 
Scriptures, and of others who, not being Agents of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, were nevertheless considered to be connected 
with it, as they distributed your editions of the Old and New Testa- 
ments. Our objects were defeated and your interests injured, there- 
fore, when the Spanish Government required the departure from this 
country of those who, by other acts and deeds wholly distinct from 
the distribution of Bibles and Testaments, had been infracting the 
Laws, Civil and Ecclesiastical." 

4 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1S39. 



308 A STRANGE MENAGE [1839 

tions to further, in their official capacity, the work of the 
Bible Society, he concludes with the following remark, as ill- 
advised as it is droll : " When dead flies fall into the 
ointment of the apothecary they cause it to send forth an 
unpleasant savour." * 

It must have been obvious to both Borrow and Mr 
Brandram that matters were rapidly approaching a crisis. 
Mr Brandram seems to have been almost openly hostile, 
and draws Borrow's attention to the fact that after all his 
distributions have been small. Borrow replies by saying 
that the fault did not rest with him. Had he been able 
to offer Bibles instead of Testaments for sale, the circula- 
tion would have been ten times greater. He expresses 
it as his belief that had he received 20,000 Bibles he 
could have sold them all in Madrid during the Spring 
of 1839. 

" When the Bible Society has no further occasion for 
my poor labours," he wrote* 2 somewhat pathetically, 
" I hope it will do me justice to the world. I have been 
its faithful and zealous servant. I shall on a future 
occasion take the liberty of addressing you as a friend 
respecting my prospects. I have the materials of a 
curious book of travels in Spain ; I have enough metrical 
translations from all languages, especially the Celtic and 
Sclavonic, to fill a dozen volumes ; and I have formed a 
vocabulary of the Spanish Gypsy tongue, and also a 
collection of the songs and poetry of the Gitanos, with 
introductory essays. Perhaps some of these literary 
labours might be turned to account. I wish to obtain 
honourably and respectably the means of visiting China 
or particular parts of Africa." 

It is clear from this that Borrow saw how unlikely it 
was that his association with the Bible Society would be 
prolonged beyond the present commission. For one 
thing Spain was, to all intents and purposes, closed to 
the unannotated Scriptures. Something might be done 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1839. 

2 Ibid. 



xix.] A FRENZY OF HATE 309 

in the matter of surreptitious distribution ; but that had 
its clearly defined limitations, as the authorities were 
very much alive to the danger of the light that Borrow 
sought to cast over the gloom of ignorance and 
superstition. 

At Earl Street it was clearly recognised that Borrow's 
work in Spain was concluded. On 1st November the 
Sub-Committee resolved that it could "not recommend 
to the General Committee to engage the further services 
of Mr Borrow until he shall have returned to this country 
from his Mission in Spain." Again, on ioth January 
following, it recommends the General Committee to 
recall him " without further delay." 

Although he had been officially recalled, nothing was 
further from Borrow's intentions than to retire meekly 
from the field. He intended to retreat with drums 
sounding and colours flying, fighting something more 
than a rearguard action. This man's energy and resource 
were terrible — to the authorities ! Seville he felt was 
still a fruitful ground, and sending to Madrid for further 
supplies of Testaments, he commenced operations. 
" Everything was accomplished with the utmost secrecy, 
and the blessed books obtained considerable circulation." l 
Agents were sent into the country and he went also 
himself, " in my accustomed manner," until all the copies 
that had arrived from the capital were put into circulation. 
He then rested for a while, being in need of quiet, as he 
was indisposed. 

By this action Borrow was incurring no little risk. 
The Canons of the Cathedral watched him closely. Their 
hatred amounted " almost to a frenzy," and Borrow states 
that scarcely a day passed without some accusation or 
other "being made to the Civil Governor, all of which were 
false. People whom he had never seen were persuaded 
to perjure themselves by swearing that he had sold or 
given them books. The same system was carried on 
1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Nov. 1839. 



310 A STRANGE MENAGE [1839 

whilst he was in Africa, because the authorities refused 
to believe that he was out of Spain. 

There now occurred another regrettable incident, and 
Borrow once more suffered for the indiscretion of those 
whom he neither knew nor controlled. To Mr Brandram 
he wrote : 

" Some English people now came to Seville and 
distributed tracts in a very unguarded manner, knowing 
nothing of the country or the inhabitants. They were 
even so unwise as to give tracts instead of money on 
visiting public buildings, etc. [!]. These persons came to 
me and requested my cooperation and advice, and likewise 
introductions to people spiritually disposed amongst the 
Spaniards, to all which requests I returned a decided 
negative. But I foresaw all. In a day or two I was 
summoned before the Civil Governor, or, as he was once 
called, the Corregidor, of Seville, who, I must say, treated 
me with the utmost politeness and indeed respect ; but at 
the same time he informed me that he had (to use his own 
expression) terrible orders from Madrid concerning me if 
I should be discovered in the act of distributing the 
Scriptures or any writings of a religious tendency ; he then 
taxed me with having circulated both lately, especially 
tracts ; whereupon I told him that I had never distributed 
a tract since I had been in Spain nor had any intention 
of doing so. We had much conversation and parted in 
kindness." x 

For a few days nothing happened ; then, determined to 
set out on an expedition to La Mancha (the delay had 
been due to the insecure state of the roads), Borrow sent his 
passport (24th Nov.) for signature to the Alcalde del Barrio. 

" This fellow," Borrow informs Mr Brandram, " is the 
greatest ruffian in Seville, and I have on various occasions 
been insulted by him ; he pretends to be a liberal, but he 
is of no principle at all, and as I reside within his district 
he has been employed by the Canons of the Cathedral to 
vex and harrass me on every possible occasion." 

In the following letter, addressed to the British Charge" 
d' Affaires (the Hon. G. S. S. Jerningham), Borrow gives a 
1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Nov. 1839. 



xix.] THE ALCALDE DEL BARRIO 311 

full account of what transpired between him and the 
Alcalde of Seville : — 

Sir,— 

I beg leave to lay before you the following 
statement of certain facts which lately occurred at Seville, 
from which you will perceive that the person of a British 
Subject has been atrociously outraged, the rights and 
privileges of a foreigner in Spain violated, and the 
sanctuary of a private house invaded without the slightest 
reason or shadow of authority by a person in the employ 
of the Spanish Government. 

For some months past I have been a resident at Seville 
in a house situated in a square called the " Plazuela de 
la Pila Seca." In this house I possess apartments, the 
remainder being occupied by an English Lady and her 
daughter, the former of whom is the widow of an officer of 
the highest respectability who died in the naval service of 
Great Britain. On the twenty-fourth of last November, I 
sent a servant, a Native of Spain, to the Office of the 
" Ayuntamiento" of Seville for the purpose of demanding 
my passport, it being my intention to set out the next day 
for Cordoba. The " Ayuntamiento " returned for answer 
that it was necessary that the ticket of residence {Billete 
de residencid) which I had received on sending in the 
Passport should be signed by the Alcalde of the district in 
which I resided, to which intimation I instantly attended. 
I will here take the liberty of observing that on several 
occasions during my residence at Seville, I have 
experienced gross insults from this Alcalde, and that more 
than once when I have had occasion to leave the Town, he 
has refused to sign the necessary document for the recovery 
of the passport ; he now again refused to do so, and used 
coarse language to the Messenger ; whereupon I sent the 
latter back with money to pay any fees, lawful or unlawful, 
which might be demanded, as I wished to avoid noise and 
the necessity of applying to the Consul, Mr Williams ; but 
the fellow became only more outrageous. I then went 
myself to demand an explanation, and was saluted with no 
inconsiderable quantity of abuse. I told him that if he 
proceeded in this manner I would make a complaint to 
the Authorities through the British Consul. He then said 
if I did not instantly depart he would drag me off to prison 
and cause me to be knocked down if I made the slightest 



312 A STRANGE MENAGE [1839 

resistance. I dared him repeatedly to do both, and said 
that he was a disgrace to the Government which employed 
him, and to human nature. He called me a vile 
foreigner. We were now in the street and a mob had 
collected, whereupon I cried : " Viva Inglaterra y viva la 
Constitucion." The populace remained quiet, notwith- 
standing the exhortations of the Alcaide that they would 
knock down " the foreigner," for he himself quailed before 
me as I looked him in the face, defying him. At length 
he exclaimed, with the usual obscene Spanish oath, " I will 
make you lower your head " (Yo te hare abajar la cabeza), 
and ran to a neighbouring guard-house and requested the 
assistance of the Nationals in conducting me to prison. I 
followed him and delivered myself up at the first summons, 
and walked to the prison without uttering a word ; not so 
the Alcalde, who continued his abuse until we arrived at 
the gate, repeatedly threatening to have me knocked down 
if I moved to the right or left. 

I was asked my name by the Authorities of the prison, 
which I refused to give unless in the presence of the 
Consul of my Nation, and indeed to answer any questions. 
I was then ordered to the Patio, or Courtyard, where 
are kept the lowest thieves and assassins of Seville, who, 
having no money, cannot pay for better accommodation, 
and by whom I should have been stripped naked in a 
moment as a matter of course, as they are all in a state 
of raging hunger and utter destitution. I asked for a 
private cell, which I was told I might have if I could pay 
for it. I stated my willingness to pay anything which 
might be demanded, and was conducted to an upper ward 
consisting of several cells and a corridor ; here I found 
six or seven Prisoners, who received me very civilly, and 
instantly procured me paper and ink for the purpose of 
writing to the Consul. In less than an hour Mr Williams 
arrived and I told him my story, whereupon he instantly 
departed in order to demand redress of the Authorities. 
The next morning the Alcalde, without any authority from 
the Political [Civil] Governor of Seville, and unaccom- 
panied by the English Consul, as the law requires in such 
cases, and solely attended by a common Escribano, went to 
the house in which I was accustomed to reside and 
demanded admission. The door was opened by my Moorish 
Servant, Hayim Ben-Attar, whom he commanded instantly 
to show the way to my apartments. On the Servant's 



XIX.] SEARCHING BORROWS ROOMS 313 

demanding by what authority he came, he said, " Cease 
chattering " (Deje cuentos), " I shall give no account to you ; 
show me the way ; if not, I will take you to prison as I did 
your master : I come to search for prohibited books." The 
Moor, who being in a strange land was somewhat intimi- 
dated, complied and led him to the rooms occupied by me, 
when the Alcalde flung about my books and papers, finding 
nothing which could in the slightest degree justify his 
search, the few books being all either in Hebrew or 
Arabic character (they consisted of the Mitchna and some 
commentaries on the Coran) ; he at last took up a large 
knife which lay on a chair and which I myself purchased 
some months previous at Santa Cruz in La Mancha as a 
curiosity — the place being famous for those knives — and 
expressed his determination to take it away as a prohibited 
article. The Escribano, however, cautioned him against 
doing so, and he flung it down. He now became very 
vociferous and attempted to force his way into some apart- 
ments occupied by the Ladies, my friends ; but soon 
desisted and at last went away, after using some threatening 
words to my Moorish Servant. Late at night of the 
second day of my imprisonment, I was set at liberty by 
virtue of an order of the Captain General, given on applica- 
tion of the British Consul, after having been for thirty 
hours imprisoned amongst the worst felons of Andalusia, 
though to do them justice I must say that I experienced 
from them nothing but kindness and hospitality. 

The above, Sir, is the correct statement of the affair 
which has now brought me to Madrid. What could have 
induced the Alcalde in question to practise such atrocious 
behaviour towards me I am at a loss to conjecture, unless 
he were instigated by certain enemies which I possess in 
Seville. However this may be, I now call upon you, as 
the Representative of the Government of which I am a 
Subject, to demand of the Minister of the Spanish Crown 
full and ample satisfaction for the various outrages detailed 
above. In conclusion, I must be permitted to add that I 
will submit to no compromise, but will never cease to claim 
justice until the culprit has received condign punishment. 
I am, etc., etc., etc. 

George Borrow. 

Madrid (no date). 

Recorded 6th December [1839]." x 

1 From the Public Record Office. 



314 A STRANGE MENAGE [1839 

Thus it happened that on 19th December Mr Brandram 
received the following letter : — 

Prison of Seville, 25/// Nov. 1839. 

I write these lines, as you see, from the common prison 
of Seville, to which I was led yesterday, or rather dragged, 
neither for murder nor robbery nor debt, but simply for 
having endeavoured to obtain a passport for Cordoba, to 
which place I was going with my Jewish servant Hayim 
Ben-Attar. 

When questioned by the Vice-Consul as to his authority 
for searching Borrow's house, the Alcalde produced a paper 
purporting to be the deposition of an old woman to whom 
Borrow was alleged to have sold a Testament some ten 
days previously. The document Borrow pronounced a 
forgery and the statement untrue. 

Borrow's fellow-prisoners treated him with unbounded 
kindness and hospitality, and he was forced to confess that 
he had " never found himself amongst more quiet and well- 
behaved men." Nothing shows more clearly the power of 
Borrow's personality over rogues and vagabonds than the 
two periods spent in Spanish prisons — at Madrid and at 
Seville. Mr Brandram must have shuddered when he 
read Borrow's letter telling him by what manner of men 
he was surrounded. 

" What is their history ? " he writes apropos of his 
fellow-prisoners. " The handsome black-haired man, who 
is now looking over my shoulder, is the celebrated thief, 
Pelacio, the most expert housebreaker and dexterous 
swindler in Spain — in a word, the modern Guzman 
D'alfarache. The brawny man who sits by the brasero of 
charcoal is Salvador, the highwayman of Ronda, who has 
committed a hundred murders. A fashionably dressed man, 
short and slight in person, is walking about the room : he 
wears immense whiskers and mustachios ; he is one of that 
most singular race the Jews of Spain ; he is imprisoned for 
counterfeiting money. He is an atheist ; but, like a true 
Jew, the name which he most hates is that of Christ. Yet he 
is so quiet and civil, and they are all so quiet and civil, 



xix.] THE COURTESY OF CRIMINALS 315 

and it is that which most horrifies me, for quietness and 
civility in them seems so unnatural." 1 

Such were the men who fraternised with an agent of a 
religious society and showed him not only civility but 
hospitality and kindness. It is open to question if they 
would have shown the same to any other unfortunate 
missionary. In all probability they recognised a fellow- 
vagabond, who was at much at issue with the social 
conventions of communities as they were with the laws of 
property. 

On this occasion the period of Borrow's imprisonment 
was brief. He was released late at night on 25th Nov., 
within thirty hours of his arrest, and he immediately set to 
work to think out a plan by which he could once more 
discomfit the Spanish authorities for this indignity to a 
British subject. He would proceed to Madrid without 
delay and put his case before the British Minister, at the 
same time he would " make preparations for leaving Spain 
as soon as possible." 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Rrandram, 25th Nov. 1839. 



I 



CHAPTER XX 

DECEMBER I 839 — MAY I 840 
T was probably about this time (1839) that 



" The Marques de Santa Coloma met Borrow again 
at Seville. He had great difficulty in rinding him out ; 
though he was aware of the street in which he resided, no 
one knew him by name. At last, by dint of inquiry and 
description, some one exclaimed,' Oh ! you mean el Brujo' 
(the wizard), and he was directed to the house. He was 
admitted with great caution, and conducted through a lot 
of passages and stairs, till at last he was ushered into a 
handsomely furnished apartment in the ' mirador] where 
Borrow was living with his wife and daughter. ... It is 
evident . . . that, to his Spanish friends at least, he thus 
called Mrs Clarke and her daughter Henrietta his wife and 
daughter : and the Marques de Santa Coloma evidently 
believed that the young lady was Borrow's own daughter, 
and not his step-daughter merely (!). At the time the 
roads from Seville to Madrid were very unsafe. Santa 
Coloma wished Borrow to join his party, who were going 
well armed. Borrow said he would be safe with his 
Gypsies. Both arrived without accident in Madrid ; the 
Marques's party first. Borrow, on his arrival, told Santa 
Coloma that his Gypsy chief had led him by by-paths and 
mountains ; that they had not slept in a village, nor seen 
a town the whole way." 1 

It must be confessed that Mr Webster was none too 
reliable a witness, and it seems highly improbable that 
Borrow would wish to pass Mrs Clarke off as his wife 

1 Rev. Wentworth Webster in The Journal of the Gypsy Lore 
Society. 



xx.] AN OFFICIAL PROTEST 317 

before their marriage. The fact of their occupying the same 
house may have seemed to their Spanish friends compromis- 
ing, as it unquestionably was ; but had he spoken of Mrs 
Clarke as his wife, it would have left her not a vestige of 
reputation. 

On arriving at Madrid Borrow found that Lord Claren- 
don's successor, Mr Arthur Aston, had not yet arrived, he 
therefore presented his complaint to the Charge d' Affaires y 
the Hon. G. S. S. Jerningham, who had succeeded Mr Sothern 
as private secretary. Mr Sothern had not yet left Madrid 
to take up his new post as First Secretary at Lisbon, and 
therefore presented Borrow to Mr Jerningham, by whom he 
was received with great kindness. He assured Mr 
Jerningham that for some time past he had given up 
distributing the Scriptures in Spain, and he merely claimed 
the privileges of a British subject and the protection of his 
Government. The First Secretary took up the case 
immediately, forwarding Borrow's letter to Don Perez de 
Castro with a request for " proper steps to be taken, should 
Mr Borrow's complaint ... be considered by His 
Excellency as properly founded." Borrow himself was 
doubtful as to whether he would obtain justice, " for I 
have against me," he wrote to Mr Brandram (24th 
December), " the Canons of Seville ; and all the arts of 
villany which they are so accustomed to practise will of 
course be used against me for the purpose of screening the 
ruffian who is their instrument. ... I have been, my dear 
Sir, fighting with wild beasts." 

The rather quaint reply to Borrow's charges was not 
forthcoming until he had left Spain and was living at 
Oulton. It runs : x 

Madrid, nth May 1840. 
Sir, 

Under date of 20th December last, Mr Perez de 
Castro informed Mr Jerningham that in order to answer 

1 The phrasing of the official translation has everywhere been 
followed. 



318 DEPARTURE FROM SPAIN [1840 

satisfactorily his note of 8th December re complaint made 
by Borrow, he required a faithful report to be made. These 
have been stated by the Municipality of Seville to the 
Civil Governor of that City, and are as follows : — 

" When Borrow meant to undertake his journey to 
Cadiz towards the end of last year, he applied to the 
section of public security for his Passport, for which purpose 
he ought to deliver his paper of residence which was given 
to him when he arrived at Seville. That paper he had not 
presented in its proper time to the Alcalde of his district, 
on which account this person had not been acquainted as 
he ought with his residence in the district, and as his 
Passport could not be issued in consequence of this 
document not being in order, Borrow addressed, through 
the medium of a Servant, to the house of the said district 
Alcalde that the defect might be remedied. That function- 
ary refused to do so, founded on the reasons already 
stated ; and for the purpose of overcoming his resistance 
he was offered a gratification, the Servant with that intent 
presenting half a dollar. The Alcalde, justly indignant, 
left his house to make the necessary complaint respecting 
their indecorous action when he met Borrow, who, sur- 
prised at the refusal of the Alcalde, expressed to him his 
astonishment, addressing insulting expressions not only 
against his person but against the authorities of Spain, who, 
he said, he was sure were to be bought at a very small 
price — crying on after this, Long live the Constitution, 
Death to the Religion, and Long live England. These and 
other insults gave rise to the Alcalde proceeding to his 
arrest and the assistance of the armed force of Veterans, 
and not of the National Militia, as Borrow supposed, 
making a detailed report to the Constitutional Alcalde, 
who forwarded it original to the Captain General of the 
Province as Judge Protector of Foreigners, leaving him 
under detention at his disposition. He did the same 
with another report transmitted by the said functionary, in 
which reference to a Lady who lived at the Gate of Xerez ; 
he denounced Borrow as a seducer of youth in matters of 
Religion by facilitating to them the perusal of prohibited 
books, of which a copy, that was in the hands of the 
Ecclesiastical Governor, was likewise transmitted to the 
Captain General. These antecedents were sufficient to 
have authorised a summary to have been formed against 
Borrow, but the repeated supplications of the British Vice- 



xx.] A BELATED EXPLANATION 319 

Consul, Mr Williams, who among other things stated that 
Borrow laboured under fits of madness, had the effect of 
causing the above Constitutional Alcalde to forgive him 
the fault committed and recommend to the Captain 
General that the matter should be dropped, which was 
acceded to, and he was put at liberty. The above facts, 
official proofs of which exist in the Captain General's 
Office, clearly disprove the statement of Borrow, who 
ungrateful for the generous hospitality which he has 
received, and for the consideration displayed towards him 
on account of his infirmity, and out of deference to the 
request of the British Vice-Consul, makes an unfounded 
complaint against the very authorities who have used 
attentions towards him which he is certainly not deserving ; 
it being worthy of remark, in order to prove the bad faith 
of his procedure, that in his own expose, although he 
disfigures facts at pleasure, using a language little decorous, 
he confesses part of his faults, such as the offering of 
money to pay, as he says, ' the legal or extra-legal dues that 
might be exacted, and his having twice challenged the 
Alcalde! 

" I should consider myself wanting towards your en- 
lightened sense of justice if, after the reasons given, I 
stopped to prove the just and prudent conduct of Seville 
authorities. 

" Hope he will therefore be completely satisfied, 
especially after the want of exactitude on Borrow's part. 

From 

Evaristo Perez de Castro." 
To Mr Aston. 1 

And so the matter ended. The Spanish authorities knew 
that they no longer had a Sir George Villiers to deal with, 
and had recourse to that trump card of weak and vacillat- 
ing diplomatists — delay. Whatever Borrow's offence, the 
method of his arrest and imprisonment was in itself 
unlawful. 

It was Borrow's intention on his return to England to 
endeavour to obtain an interview with some members 

1 The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at the 
Record Office. 



320 DEPARTURE FROM SPAIN [1840 

of the House of Lords, in order to acquaint them with the 
manner in which Protestants were persecuted in Spain. 
They were debarred from the exercise of their religion 
from being married by Protestant rites, and the common 
privileges of burial were denied them. He was anxious 
for Protestant England, lest it should fall a victim to 
Popery. This fear of Rome was a very real one to Borrow. 
He marvelled at people's blindness to the danger that was 
threatening them, and he even went so far as to entreat 
his friends at Earl Street " to drop all petty dissensions 
and to comport themselves like brothers " against their 
common enemy the Pope. 

Unfortunately Borrow had shown to a number of friends 
one of his letters to Mr Brandram dealing with the Seville 
imprisonment, and had even allowed several copies of it to 
be taken " in order that an incorrect account of the affair 
might not get abroad." The result was an article in a 
London newspaper containing remarks to the disparage- 
ment of other workers for the Gospel in Spain. Borrow 
disavowed all knowledge of these observations. 

" I am not ashamed of the Methodists of Cadiz" he 
assures Mr Brandram, " their conduct in many respects does 
them honor, nor do I accuse any one of fanaticism amongst 
our dear and worthy friends ; but I cannot answer for 
the tittle-tattle of Madrid. Far be it from me to reflect 
upon any one, I am but too well aware of my own 
multitudinous imperfections and follies." 1 

There is nothing more mysterious in Borrow's life than 
his years of friendship with Mrs Clarke. He was never a 
woman's man, but Mary Clarke seems to have awakened 
in him a very sincere regard. The menage at Seville was a 
curious one, and both Borrow and Mrs Clarke should have 
seen that it was calculated to make people talk. There 
may have been a tacit understanding between them. 
Everything connected with their relations and courtship 
is very mysterious. Dr Knapp is scarcely just to Borrow or 
1 28th Dec. 1839. 



xx.] A MYSTERIOUS ENGAGEMENT 321 

gracious to the woman he married, when he implies that 
it was merely a business arrangement on both sides. Mrs 
Clarke's affairs required a man's hand to administer them, 
and Borrow was prepared to give the man's hand in 
exchange for an income. The engagement could scarcely 
have taken place in the middle of November 1839, as 
Dr Knapp states, for on the day of his arrest at Seville 
(24th Nov.) Borrow wrote : — 

My dear Mrs Clarke, — Do not be alarmed, but I 
am at present in the prison, to which place the Alcalde 
del Barrio conducted me when I asked him to sign the 
Passport. If Phelipe is not already gone to the Consul, 
let Henrietta go now and show him this letter. When I 
asked the fellow his motives for not signing the Passport, 
he said if I did not go away he would carry me to prison. 
I dared him to do so, as I had done nothing ; whereupon 
he led me here. — Yours truly, 

George Borrow. 

This is obviously not the letter of a man recently 
engaged to the woman who is to become his wife. On 
the other hand, Borrow may have been writing merely for 
the Consul's eye. 

On hearing the news of the engagement old Mrs 
Borrow wrote : — 

" I am not surprised, my dear Mrs Clarke, at what you 
tell me, though I knew nothing of it. It put me in mind 
of the Revd. Flethers ; you know they took time to 
consider. So far all is well. I shall now resign him to 
your care, and may you love and cherish him as much as 
I have done. I hope and trust that each will try to make 
the other happy. You will always have my prayers and 
best wishes. Give my kind love to dear George and tell him 
he is never out of my thoughts. I have much to say, but I 
cannot write. I shall be glad to see you all safe and well. 
Give my love to Henrietta ; tell her / can sing ' Gaily the 
Troubadour' ; I only want the 'guitar.' 1 God bless you all." 

1 Henrietta played "remarkably well on the guitar — not the 
trumpery German thing so-called — but the real Spanish guitar." — 
Wild Wales, page 6. 

X 



322 DEPARTURE FROM SPAIN [1840 

There is no doubt that a very strong friendship had 
existed between Mrs Clarke and Borrow during the whole 
time that he had been associated with the Bible Society. 
She it was who had been indirectly responsible for his 
introduction to Earl Street. It is idle to speculate what 
it was that led Mrs Clarke to select Seville as the place to 
which to fly from her enemies. There is, however, a 
marked significance in old Mrs Borrow's words, " I am not 
surprised, my dear Mrs Clarke, at what you tell me." 
Whatever his mother may have seen, there appears to 
have been no thought of marriage in Borrow's mind when, 
on 29th September 1839, he wrote to Mr Brandram telling 
him of his wish to visit " China or particular parts of 
Africa." 

Borrow paid many tributes to his wife, not only in 
his letters, but in print, every one of which she seems 
thoroughly to have merited. " Of my wife," he writes, 1 
" I will merely say that she is a perfect paragon of 
wives — can make puddings and sweets and treacle posset, 
and is the best woman of business in East Anglia." 
On another occasion he praises her for more general 
qualities, when he compares her to the good wife of the 
Triad, the perfect woman endowed with all the feminine 
virtues. His wife and " old Hen." (Henrietta) were his 
" two loved ones," and he subsequently shows in a score of 
ways how much they had become part of his life. 

After his return to Seville, early in January, Borrow 
proceeded to get his " papers into some order." There 
seems no doubt that this meant preparing The Zincali for 
publication. In the excitement and enthusiasm of author- 
ship, and the pleasant company of Mrs and Miss Clarke, 
he seems to have been divinely unconscious that he was 
under orders to proceed home. Week after week passed 
without news of their Agent in Spain reaching Earl Street, 
and the Officials and Committee of the Bible Society 
became troubled to account for his non-appearance. The 
1 Wild Wales, page 6. 



xx.] THE BIBLE SOCIETY ANXIOUS 323 

last letter from him had been received on 13th January. 
Early in March Mr Jackson wrote to Mr Brackenbury 
asking for news of him. A letter to Mr Williams at 
Seville was enclosed, which Mr Brackenbury had discre- 
tionary powers to withhold if he were able to supply the 
information himself. Two letters that Borrow had 
addressed to the Society it appears had gone astray, and 
as " one steamer . . . arrived after another and yet no news 
from Mr Borrow," some apprehension began to manifest 
itself lest misfortune had befallen him. On the other 
hand, Borrow had heard nothing from the Society for five 
months, the long silence making him " very, very unhappy." 
In reply to Mr Brandram's letter Borrow wrote : — 

" I did not return to England immediately after my 
departure from Madrid for several reasons. First, there was 
my affair with the Alcalde still pending ; second, I wished 
to get my papers into some order ; third, I wished to effect 
a little more in the cause, though not in the way of dis- 
tribution, as I have no books : moreover the house in 
which I resided was paid for and I was unwilling altogether 
to lose the money ; I likewise dreaded an English winter, 
for I have lately been subjected to attacks, whether of 
gout or rheumatism I know not, which I believe were 
brought on by sitting, standing and sleeping in damp 
places during my wanderings in Spain. The Alcalde has 
lately been turned out of his situation, but I believe more 
on account of his being a Carlist than for his behaviour to 
me ; that, however, is of little consequence, as I have long 
forgotten the affair." 1 

There was no longer any reason for delay ; the English 
winter was over, he had one book nearly ready for publi- 
cation and two others in a state of forwardness. 

" I embark on the third of next month [April]," he 
continued, "and you will probably see me by the 16th. I 
wish very much to spend the remaining years of my life 
in the northern parts of China, as I think I have a call for 
those regions, and shall endeavour by every honourable 
means to effect my purpose." 2 

1 Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 18th March 1840. 2 Ibid. 



324 DEPARTURE FROM SPAIN [1840 

These words would seem to imply that his marriage 
with Mrs Clarke was by no means decided upon at the 
date he wrote, although during the previous month he had 
been in correspondence with Mr Brackenbury regarding 
Protestants in Spain being debarred from marrying. It is 
inconceivable that Mrs Clarke and her daughter con- 
templated living in the North of China ; and equally 
unlikely that Mrs Clarke would marry a potential 
" absentee landlord," or one who frankly confessed " I hope 
yet to die in the cause of my Redeemer." 

Sidi Habismilk had at first presented a grave problem ; 
but Mr Brackenbury, who secured the passages on the 
steamer, arranged also for the Arab to be slung aboard the 
Steam-Packet. On 3rd April the whole party, including 
Hayim Ben Attar and Sidi Habismilk, boarded the Royal 
Adelaide bound for London. 

Borrow never forgave Spain for its treatment of him, 
although some of the happiest years of his life had been 
spent there. " The Spaniards are a stupid, ungrateful set 
of ruffians," he afterwards wrote, " and are utterly 
incapable of appreciating generosity or forbearance." He 
piled up invective upon the unfortunate country. It was 
" the chosen land of the two fiends — assassination and 
murder," where avarice and envy were the prevailing 
passions. It was the " country of error" ; yet at the same 
time "the land of extraordinary characters." As he saw 
its shores sinking beneath the horizon, he was mercifully 
denied the knowledge that never again was he to be so 
happily occupied as during the five years he had spent 
upon its soil distributing the Scriptures, and using a 
British Minister as a two-edged sword. 

The party arrived in London on 16th April and put up 
at the Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street. On 23rd 
April, at St Peter's Church in Cornhill, the wedding took 
place. There were present as witnesses only Henrietta 
Clarke and John Pilgrim, the Norwich solicitor. In the 
Register the names appear as : — 



xx.] MARRIAGE 325 

" George Henry Borrow — of full age — bachelor — 
gentleman — of the City of Norwich — son of Thomas 
Borrow — Captain in the Army. 

" Mary Clarke — of full age — widow — of Spread Eagle 
Inn, Gracechurch Street — daughter of Edmund Skepper — 
Esquire." 

On 2nd May an announcement of the marriage 
appeared in The Norfolk Chronicle. A few days later the 
party left for Oulton Cottage, and Borrow became a landed 
proprietor on a small scale in his much-loved East 
Anglia. 

On 2 ist April Mr Brandram had written to Borrow the 
following letter : — 

My dear Friend, — Your later communications 
have been referred to our Sub-Committee for General 
Purposes. After what you said 3'esterday in the Com- 
mittee, I am hardly aware that anything can arise out of 
them. The door seems shut. The Sub-Committee meet on 
Friday. Will you wish to make any communications to 
them as to any ulterior views that may have occurred to 
yourself? I do not myself at present see any sphere open 
to which your services in connection with our Society can 
be transferred. . . . With best wishes — Believe me — 
Yours truly, 

A. Brandram. 

On 24th April, the day after Borrow's wedding, the Sub- 
Committee duly met and 

" Resolved that, upon mature consideration, it does not 
appear to this Sub-Committee that there is, at present, 
any opening for employing Mr Borrow beneficially as an 
Agent of the Society . . . and that it be recommended to 
the General Committee that the salary of Mr Borrow be 
paid up to the 10th June next." 

The Bible Society's valediction, which appeared in the 
Thirty-Sixth Annual Report, read : — 

" G. Borrow, Esq., one of the gentlemen referred to in 
former Reports as having so zealously exerted themselves 
on behalf of Spain, has just returned home, hopeless of 



326 DEPARTURE FROM SPAIN [1840 

further attempts at present to distribute the Scriptures in 
that country. Mr B. has succeeded, by almost incredible 
pains, and at no small cost and hazard, in selling during 
his last visit a few hundred copies of the Bible, and most 
that remained of the edition of the New Testament printed 
in Madrid." 

Thus ended George Borrow's activities on behalf of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, and incidentally the 
seven happiest and most active years of his life. On the 
whole the association had been honourable to all concerned. 
There had been moments of irritation and mistakes on 
both sides. It would be foolish to accuse the Society of 
deliberately planting obstacles in the path of its own agent ; 
but the unfortunate championing of Lieutenant Graydon 
was the result of a very grave error of judgment. Borrow 
had no personal friends among the Committee, to whom the 
impetuous zeal of Graydon was more picturesque than the 
grave and deliberate caution of Borrow. The Officials 
and Committee alike saw in Graydon the ideal Reformer, 
rushing precipitately towards martyrdom, exposing Anti- 
Christ as he ran. Had Borrow been content to allow 
others to plead his cause, the history of his relations with 
the Bible Society would, in all probability, have been 
different. He felt himself a grievously injured man, who had 
suffered from what he considered to be the insane antics 
of another, and he was determined that Earl Street should 
know it. On the other hand, Mr Brandram does not 
appear to have understood Borrow. He made no attempt 
to humour him, to praise him for what he had done and 
the way in which he had done it. Praise was meat and 
drink to Borrow ; it compensated him for what he had 
endured and encouraged him to further effort. He 
hungered for it, and when it did not come he grew dis- 
couraged and thought that those who employed him 
were not conscious of what he was suffering. Hence the 
long accounts of what he had undergone for the Gospel's 
sake. 



xx.] AN HONOURABLE ASSOCIATION 327 

During his six years in Spain he had" distributed nearly 
5000 copies of the New Testament and 500 Bibles, also 
some hundreds of the Basque and Gypsy Gospel of St 
Luke. These figures seem insignificant beside those of 
Lieut. Graydon, who, on one occasion, sold as many as 
1082 volumes in fourteen days, and in two years printed 
13,000 Testaments and 3000 Bibles, distributing the larger 
part of them. During the year 1837 he circulated alto- 
gether between five and six thousand books. But there 
was no comparison between the work of the two men. 
Graydon had kept to the towns and cities on the south 
coast ; Borrow's methods were different. He circulated 
his books largely among villages and hamlets, where the 
population was sparse and the opportunities of distribution 
small. He had gone out into the highways, risking his life 
at every turn, penetrating into bandit-infested provinces in 
the throes of civil war, suffering incredible hardships and 
fatigues and never sparing himself. Both men were 
earnest and eager ; but the Bible Society favoured the 
wrong man — at least for its purposes. But for Lieut. 
Graydon, Borrow would in all probability have gone to 
China, and what a book he would have written, at least 
what letters, about the sealed East ! 

Borrow, however, had nothing to complain of. He had 
found occupation when he badly needed it, which indirectly 
was to bring him fame. He had been well paid for his 
services (during the seven years of his employment he drew 
some £2300 in salary and expenses), his ,£200 a year and 
expenses (in Spain) comparing very favourably with Mr 
Brandram's £300 a year. 

He was loyal to the Bible Society, both in word and 
thought. He honourably kept to himself the story of the 
Graydon dispute. He spoke of the Society with enthu- 
siasm, exclaiming, " Oh ! the blood glows in his veins ! oh ! 
the marrow awakes in his old bones when he thinks of 
what he accomplished in Spain in the cause of religion 
and civilisation with the colours of that society in his 



328 DEPARTURE FROM SPAIN [1840 

hat." * In spite of the misunderstandings and the rebukes 
he could write fourteen years later that he " bade it adieu 
with feelings of love and admiration." 2 He "had done 
with Spain for ever, after doing for her all that lay in the 
power of a lone man, who had never in this world anything 
to depend upon, but God and his own slight strength." 3 
In the preface to The Bible in Spain he pays a handsome 
tribute to both Rule and Graydon, thus showing that 
although he was a good hater, he could be magnanimous. 
It has been stated that, during a portion of his 
association with the Bible Society, Borrow acted as a 
foreign correspondent for The Morning Herald. Dr Knapp 
has very satisfactorily disproved the statement, which the 
Rev. Wentworth Webster received from the Marques de 
Santa Coloma. Either the Marques or Mr Webster is 
responsible for the statement that Borrow was wrecked, 
instead of nearly wrecked, off Cape Finisterre. As the 
Marques was a passenger on the boat, the mistake must 
be ascribed to Mr Webster. The further statement that 
Borrow was imprisoned at Pamplona by Quesada is 
scarcely more credible than that about the wreck. His 
imprisonment could not very well have taken place, as 
stated, in 1837-9, because General Quesada was killed in 
1836. Mention is made of this foreign correspondent 
rumour only because it has been printed and reprinted. 
It may be that Borrow was imprisoned at Pamplona 
during the " Veiled Period " ; there is certainly one 
imprisonment (according to his own statement) un- 
accounted for. It is curious how the fact first became 
impressed upon the Marques' mind, unless he had heard 
it from Borrow. It is quite likely that he confused the 
date. 

It would be interesting to identify the two men whom 
Borrow describes in Lavengro as being at the offices 
of the Bible Society in Earl Street, when he sought to 

1 The Romany Rye, page 312. - Ibid., page 313. 

3 Wild Wales, page 289. 



xx.] TWO WORTHIES 329 

exchange for a Bible the old Apple-woman's copy of 
Moll Flanders. " One was dressed in brown," he writes, 
" and the other was dressed in black ; both were tall men — 
he who was dressed in brown was thin, and had a particu- 
larly ill-natured countenance ; the man dressed in black 
was bulky, his features were noble, but they were those 
of a lion." * Again, in The Romany Rye, he makes the 
man in black say with reference to the Bible Society : — 
" There is one fellow amongst them for whom we enter- 
tain a particular aversion : a big, burly parson, with the 
face of a lion, the voice of a buffalo, and a fist like a 
sledge-hammer." 2 Who these two worthies were it is 
impossible to say with any degree of certainty. Caroline 
Fox describes Andrew Brandram no further than that he 
" appeared before us once more with his shaggy eyebrows." 3 
Mr Brandram was not thin and his countenance was not 
ill-natured. 

1 Lavengro, page 261. 2 The Romcmy Rye, page 22. 

3 The Journals of Caroline Fox. 



CHAPTER XXI 

MAY 184O — MARCH I 84 1 

T7ARLY in May, Borrow, his wife and step-daughter 
-*^ / left London to take up their residence at Oulton, in 
Suffolk. After years of wandering and vagabondage he 
was to settle down as a landed proprietor. His income, 
or rather his wife's, amounted to ^450 per annum, and he 
must have saved a considerable sum out of the £2300 he 
had drawn from the Bible Society, as his mother appears 
to have regarded the amounts he had sent to her as held 
in trust. He was therefore able to instal himself, Sidi 
Habismilk and the Jew of Fez upon his wife's small 
estate, with every prospect of enjoying a period of comfort 
and rest after his many years of wandering and adventure. 
Oulton Cottage was ideally situated on the margin of 
the Broad. It was a one-storied building, with a dormer- 
attic above, hanging " over a lonely lake covered with 
wild fowl, and girt with dark firs, through which the wind 
sighs sadly. 1 A regular Patmos, an ultima Thule ; placed 
in an angle of the most unvisited, out-of-the-way portion 
of England." 2 A few yards from the water's edge stood 
the famous octagonal Summer-house that Borrow made 
his study. Here he kept his books, a veritable " polyglot 
gentleman's " library, consisting of such literary " tools " as 
a Lav-engro might be expected to possess. There were 

1 The Letters of Richard Ford, 1797- 1858. — Edited, R. E. Prothero, 
M.V.O., 1905. 

2 Ibid. 

330 



xxi.] THE OCTAGONAL SUMMER-HOUSE 331 

also books of travel and adventure, some chairs, a lounge 
and a table ; whilst behind the door hung the sword and 
regimental coat of the sleeping warrior to whom his 
younger son had been an affliction of the spirit, because 
his mind pursued paths that appeared so strangely 
perilous. 

Here in this Summer-house Borrow wrote his books. 
Here when " sickness was in the land, and the face of 
nature was overcast — heavy rain-clouds swam in the 
heavens — the blast howled amid the pines which nearly 
surround the lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake 
which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, were 
fearfully agitated," Borrow shouted, " ' Bring lights hither, 
O Hayim Ben Attar, son of the miracle ! ' And the Jew 
of Fez brought in the lights," 1 and his master commenced 
writing a book that was to make him famous.. When 
tired of writing, he would sometimes sing " strange words 
in a stentorian voice, while passers-by on the lake would 
stop to listen with astonishment and curiosity to the 
singular sounds." 2 

Life at Oulton Cottage was delightfully simple. 
Borrow was a good host. " I am rather hospitable than 
otherwise," 3 he wrote, and thoroughly disliked anything in 
the nature of meanness. There was always a bottle of 
wine of a rare vintage for the honoured guest. Some- 
times the host himself would hasten away to the little 
Summer-house by the side of the Broad to muse, his 
eyes fixed upon the military coat and sword, or to scribble 
upon scraps of paper that, later, were to be transcribed by 
Mrs Borrow. Borrow would spend his evenings with his 
wife and Henrietta, generally in reading until bedtime. 

In the Norwich days Borrow had formed an acquaint- 
ance with another articled-clerk named Harvey (probably 

1 The Gypsies of Spain, page xiv. 

2 Elizabeth] H[arveyJ in The Eastern Daily Press, ist Oct. 
1892. 

3 The Gypsies of Spain, page 238. 



332 LIFE AT OULTON COTTAGE [1840 

one of his colleagues at Tuck's Court). They had kindred 
tastes, in particular a love of the open air and vigorous 
exercise. After settling at Oulton, the Borrows and the 
Harveys (then living at Bury St Edmunds) became very 
intimate, and frequently visited each other. Elizabeth 
Harvey, the daughter of Borrow's contemporary, has given 
an extremely interesting account of the home life of the 
Borrows. She has described how sometimes Borrow 
would sing one of his Romany songs, " shake his fist at me 
and look quite wild. Then he would ask : ' Aren't you 
afraid of me ? ' ' No, not at all,' I would say. Then he 
would look just as gentle and kind, and say, ' God bless 
you, I would not hurt a hair of your head.' " x 

Miss Harvey has also given us many glimpses into 
Borrow's character. " He was very fond of ghost stories," 
she writes, " and believed in the supernatural." 2 He 
enjoyed music of a lively description, one of his favourite 
compositions being the well-known " Redowa " polka, 
which he would frequently ask to have played to him 
again. 

As an eater Borrow was very moderate, he " took very 
little breakfast but ate a very great quantity of dinner, 
and then had only a draught of cold water before going to 
bed. . . . He was very temperate and would eat what was 
set before him, often not thinking of what he was doing, 
and he never refused what was offered him." 3 On one 
occasion when he was dining with the Harveys, young 
Harvey, seeing Borrow engrossed in telling of his travels, 
handed him dish after dish in rapid succession, from all of 
which he helped himself, entirely unconscious of what he 
was doing. Finally his plate was full to overflowing, per- 
ceiving which he became very angry, and it was some 
time before he could be appeased. A practical joke 
made no appeal to him. 4 

Elizabeth Harvey also tells how, when a cousin of hers 

1 Elizabeth] H[arvey] in The Eastern Daily Press, 1st Oct. 1892. 
2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 



xxl] LIFE AT OULTON COTTAGE 333 

was staying at Cromer, the landlady went to her one day 
and said, " O, Miss, there's such a curious gentleman been. 
I don't know what to think of him, 1 asked him what he 
would like for dinner, and he said, ' Give me a piece of 
flesh.' " " What sort of gentleman was it ? " enquired 
the cousin, and on hearing the description recognised 
George Borrow, and explained that the strange visitor 
merely wanted a rump - steak, a favourite dish with 
him. 

As he did not shoot or hunt, he obtained exercise 
either by riding or walking. At times " he suffered from 
sleeplessness, when he would get up and walk to Norwich 
(25 miles) and return the next night recovered " ; x yet 
Borrow has said that "he always had the health of an 
elephant." 

He was proud of the Church and took great pleasure 
in showing to his friends the brasses it contained, including 
one bearing an effigy of Sir John Fastolf, whom he con- 
sidered to be the original of Falstaff. He was also " very 
fond of his trees. He quite fretted if by some mischance 
he lost one." 2 

His methods with the country people round Oulton 
were calculated to earn for him a reputation for queerness. 
" Curiosity is the leading feature of my character " 3 he 
confessed, and the East Anglian looks upon curiosity in 
others with marked suspicion. It was impossible for 
Borrow to walk far without getting into conversation with 
someone or other. He delighted in getting people to tell 
their histories and experiences; "when they used some 
word peculiar to Norfolk (or Suffolk) country men, he 
would say ' Why, that's a Danish word.' By and bye the 
man would use another peculiar expression, ' Why, that's 
Saxon'; a little further on another, ' Why, that's French.' 
And he would add, ' Why, what a wonderful man you are 
to speak so many languages.' One man got very angry, 

1 E[lizabeth] H[arvey] in The Eastern Daily Press, 1st Oct. 1892. 

2 Ibid. 3 The Bible in Spain, page 41. 



334 LIFE AT OULTON COTTAGE [1840 

but Mr Borrow was quite unconscious that he had given 
any offence." l 

He took pleasure in puzzling people about languages. 
Elizabeth Harvey tells 2 how he once put a book before 
her telling her to read it, and on her saying she could not, 
he replied, " You ought ; it's your own language." The 
volume was written in Saxon. Yet for all this he hated 
to hear foreign words introduced into conversation. When 
he heard such adulterations of the English language he 
would exclaim jocosely, " What's that, trying to come over 
me with strange languages ? " 3 

Borrow's first thoughts on settling down were of 
literature. He had material for several books, as he had 
informed Mr Brandram. Putting aside, at least for the 
present, the translations of the ballads and songs, he 
devoted himself to preparing for the press a book upon 
the Spanish Gypsies. During the five years spent in 
Spain he had gathered together much material. He had 
made notes in queer places under strange and curious 
conditions, " in moments snatched from more important 
pursuits — chiefly in ventas and posadds " 4 — whilst engaged 
in distributing the Gospel. It was a book of facts that he 
meant to write, not theories, and if he sometimes fostered 
error, it was because at the moment it was his conception 
of truth. Very little remained to do to the manuscript. 
Mrs. Borrow had performed her share of the work in 
making a fair copy for the printer. Borrow's subsequent 
remark that the manuscript "was written by a country 
amanuensis and probably contains many ridiculous errata," 
was scarcely gracious to the wife, who seems to have com- 

1 Elizabeth] H[arvey] in The Eastern Daily Press, ist Oct. 1892. 

2 In The Eastern Daily Press, ist Oct. 1892. She also tells how 
"at the Exhibition in 185 1, whither we went with his step-daughter, 
he spoke to the different foreigners in their own languages, until his 
daughter saw some of them whispering together and looking as if 
they thought he was ' uncanny,' and she became alarmed, and drew 
him away." 

3 ibid. 4 The Gypsies of Spain, page vii. 



xxi.] BORROW MEETS JOHN MURRAY 335 

prehended so well the first principle of wifely duty to an 
illustrious and, it must be admitted, autocratic genius — 
viz., self-extinction. 

" No man could endure a clever wife," Borrow once 
confided to the unsympathetic ear of Frances Power 
Cobbe ; but he had married one nevertheless. No woman 
whose cleverness had not reached the point of inspiration 
could have lived in intimate association with so capricious 
and masterful a man as George Borrow. John Hasfeldt, 
in sending his congratulations, had seemed to suggest that 
Borrow was one of those abstruse works of nature that 
require close and constant study. " When your wife 
thoroughly knows you," he wrote, " she will smooth the 
wrinkles on your brow and you will be so cheerful and 
happy that your grey hair will turn black again." 

" In November 1840 a tall athletic gentleman in black 
called upon Mr Murray, offering a manuscript for perusal 
and publication." 1 Fifteen years before, the same " tall 
athletic gentleman " had called a dozen times at 50a Albe- 
marle Street with translations of Northern and Welsh 
ballads, but " never could see Glorious John." Borrow 
had determined to make another attempt to see John 
Murray, and this time he was successful. He submitted 
the manuscript of The Zincali, which Murray sent to 
Richard Ford 2 that he might pronounce upon it and its 
possibilities. " I have made acquaintance," Ford wrote to 
H. U. Addington, 14th Jan. 1841, "with an extraordinary 
fellow, George Borrow, who went out to Spain to convert 
the gypsies. He is about to publish his failure, and a 
curious book it will be. It was submitted to my perusal 
by the hesitating Murray." 3 On Ford's advice the book 

1 A Publisher and His Friends. Samuel Smiles. 

2 Richard Ford, 1796- 1858. Critic and author. Spent several 
years in touring about Spain on horseback. Published in 1845, 
Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain. Contributed to the Edinburgh, 
Quarterly, and Westminster Reviews from 1837. 

3 The Letters of Richard Ford, 1797-1858. Ed. R. E. Prothero, 
M.V.O., 1905. 



336 LIFE AT OULTON COTTAGE [1841 

was accepted for publication, it being arranged that author 
and publisher should share the profits equally between 
them. 

On 17th April 1841 there appeared in two volumes 
The Zincali; 1 or, An Account of the Gypsies in Spain. 
With an original Collection of their Songs and Poetry, and 
a copious Dictionary of their Language. By George Borrow, 
late Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 
Spain. It was dedicated to the Earl of Clarendon, G.C.B. 
(Sir George Villiers), in " remembrance of the many 
obligations under which your Lordship has placed me, by 
your energetic and effectual interference in time of need." 
The first edition of 750 copies sufficed to meet the demand 
of two years. Ford, however, wrote to Murray : " The 
book has created a great sensation far and wide. I was 
sure it would, and I hope you think that when I read the 
MS. my opinion and advice were sound." 2 

The Zincali had been begun at Badajos with the 
Romany songs or rhymes copied down as recited by 
his gypsy friends. To these he had subsequently added, 
being assisted by a French courier, Juan Antonio Bailly, 
who translated the songs into Spanish. These trans- 
lations were originally intended to be published in 
a separate work, as was the Vocabulary, which forms 
part of The Zincali. Had Borrow sought to make two 
separate works of the " Songs " and " Vocabulary," there 
is very considerable doubt if they would have fared any 
better than the everlasting Ab Gwilym ; but either with 
inspiration, or acting on some one's wise counsel, he 
determined to subordinate them to an account of the 
Spanish Gypsies. 

As a piece of bookmaking The Zincali is by no means 
notable. Borrow himself refers to it (page 354) as "this 

1 Dr. Knapp points out that the title is inaccurate, there being no 
such word as "Zincali." It should be "ZincaleV 

2 The Letters of Richard Ford, 1 797-1 858. Ed. R. E. Prothero, 
M.V.O., 1905. 




RICHARD FORD 

(From the painting by Antonio Chatelain). 



[To lace page 330. 



xxi.] BORROW AND THE GYPSIES 337 

strange wandering book of mine." In construction it 
savours rather of the method by which it was originally 
inspired ; but for all that it is fascinating reading, 
saturated with the atmosphere of vagabondage and the 
gypsy encampment. It was not necessarily a book for the 
scholar and the philologist, many of whom scorned it on 
account of its rather obvious carelessnesses and inac- 
curacies. Borrow was not a writer of academic books. He 
lacked the instinct for research which alone insures 
accuracy. 

It was particularly appropriate that Borrow's first book 
should be about the Gypsies, who had always exercised so 
strange an attraction for him that he could not remember 
the time " when the very name of Gypsy did not awaken 
within me feelings hard to be described." 1 His was not 
merely an interest in their strange language, their tradi- 
tions, their folk-lore ; it was something nearer and closer 
to the people themselves. They excited his curiosity, he 
envied their mode of life, admired their clannishness, 
delighted in their primitive customs. Their persistence in 
warring against the gentile appealed strongly to his 
instinctive hatred of " gentility nonsense " ; and perhaps 
more than anything else, he envied them the stars and 
the sun and the wind on the heath. 

" Romany matters have always had a peculiar interest 
for me," 2 he affirms over and over again in different 
words, and he never lost an opportunity of joining a party 
of gypsies round their camp-fire. His knowledge of the 
Romany people was not acquired from books. Apparently 
he had read very few of the many works dealing with the 
mysterious race he had singled out for his particular 
attention. With characteristic assurance he makes the 

1 The Gypsies of Spain, page i. As the current edition of 
The Zincali has been retitled The Gypsies of Spain, reference is 
made to it throughout this work under that title and to the latest 
edition. 

2 The Gypsies of Spain, page 32. 

Y 



338 LIFE AT OULTON COTTAGE [1841 

sweeping assertion that " all the books which have been 
published concerning them [the Gypsies] have been 
written by those who have introduced themselves into 
their society for a few hours, and from what they have 
seen or heard consider themselves competent to give the 
world an idea of the manners and customs of the 
mysterious Romany." 1 

His attitude towards the race is curious. He recog- 
nised the Gypsies as liars, rogues, cheats, vagabonds, in 
short as the incarnation of all the vices ; yet their 
fascination for him in no way diminished. He could mix 
with them, as with other vagabonds, and not become 
harmed by their broad views upon personal property, or 
their hundred and one tricks and dishonesties. He was 
a changed man when in their company, losing all that 
constraint that marked his intercourse with people of his 
own class. 

He had laboured hard to bring the light of the Gospel 
into their lives. He made them translate for him the 
Scriptures into their tongue ; but it was the novelty of the 
situation, aided by the glass of Malaga wine he gave them, 
not the beauty of the Gospel of St Luke, that aroused their 
interest and enthusiasm. To this, Borrow's own eyes were 
open. " They listened with admiration," he says ; " but, 
alas ! not of the truths, the eternal truths, I was telling 
them, but to find that their broken jargon could be written 
and read." 2 

On one occasion, having refused to one of his congrega- 
tion the loan of two barias (ounces of gold), he proceeded 
to read to the whole assembly instead the Lord's Prayer 
and the Apostle's Creed in Romany. Happening to 
glance up, he found not a gypsy in the room, but squinted, 
" the Gypsy fellow, the contriver of the jest, squinted worst 
of all. Such are Gypsies." 3 

It was indeed the novelty that appealed to them. 

1 The Gypsies of Spain, page 8i. a Ibid., page 186. 

8 Ibid., page 283. 




JOHN MURRAY THE SECOND. 
The ' ' Glorious John " of Lavengro. 



(From a portrait by H. W. Pickersgill, R.A., in the 



possession of Mr Murray). 

[Tojur, pagi 888. 



xxi.] "THE WHITE-HEADED ROMANY RYE'" 339 

They greeted with a shout of exultation the reading 
aloud a translation that they themselves had dictated ; but 
they remained unmoved by the Christian teaching it 
contained. For all these discouragements Borrow per- 
sisted, and perhaps none of his efforts in Spain produced 
less result than this " attempt to enlighten the minds of 
the Gitanos on the subject of religion." * 

If the Gypsies were all that is evil, judged by conven- 
tional standards, they at least loyally stood by each other 
in the face of a common foe. Borrow knew Ambrose 
Petulengro to be a liar, a thief, in fact most things that 
it is desirable a man should not be ; yet he was equally 
sure that under no circumstances would he forsake a 
friend to whom he stood pledged. There seems to be 
little doubt that Borrow's fame with the Gypsies spread 
throughout England and the Continent. " Everybody as 
ever see'd the white-headed Romany Rye never forgot 
him." 

Borrow was by no means the first Romany Rye. From 
Andrew Boorde (i5th-i6th Century) down the centuries 
they are to be found, even to our day, in the persons of 
Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton and Mr John Sampson ; but 
Borrow was the first to bring the cult of Gypsyism into 
popularity. Before he wrote, the general view of Gypsies 
was that they were uncomfortable people who robbed the 
clothes-lines and hen-roosts, told fortunes and incidentally 
intimidated the housewife if unprotected by man or dog. 
Borrow changed all this. The suspicion remained, so 
strongly in fact that he himself was looked at askance for 
consorting with such vagabonds ; but with the suspicion 
was more than a spice of interest, and the Gypsies became 
epitomised and immortalised in the person of Jasper 
Petulengro. Borrow's Gypsyism was as unscientific as his 
" philology." Their language, their origin he commented 
on without first acquainting himself with the literature 
that had gathered round their name. Francis Hindes 
1 The Gypsies of Spain, page 274. 



340 LIFE AT OULTON COTTAGE [1841 

Groome, " that perfect scholar-gypsy and gypsy-scholar," 
wrote : — 

"The meagreness of his knowledge of the Anglo-Gypsy 
dialect came out in his Word Book of the Romany (1874) ; 
there must have been over a dozen Englishmen who have 
known it far better than he. For his Spanish-Gypsy 
vocabulary in The Zincali he certainly drew largely either 
on Richard Bright's Travels through Lozver Hungary or on 
Bright's Spanish authority, whatever that may have been. 
His knowlege of the strange history of the Gypsies was 
very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of 
their folk-lore practically nil. And yet I would put 
George Borrow above every other writer on the Gypsies. 
In Lavengro and, to a less degree, in its sequel, The 
Romany Rye, he communicates a subtle insight into 
Gypsydom that is totally wanting in the works — mainly 
philological — of Pott, Liebich, Paspati, Miklosich, and their 
confreres." l 

Groome was by no means partial to Borrow, as a 
matter of fact he openly taxed him 2 with drawing upon 
Bright's Travels in Hungary (Edinburgh 18 19) for the 
Spanish-Romany Vocabulary, and was strong in his 
denunciation of him as a poseur. 

Borrow scorned book-learning. Writing to John 
Murray, Junr. (21st Jan. 1843), about Tlie Bible in Spain, 
he says, " I was conscious that there was vitality in the 
book and knew that it must sell. I read nothing and drew 
entirely from my own well. I have long been tired of 
books ; I have had enough of them," 3 he wrote later, and 
this, taken in conjunction with another sentence, viz., 
" My favourite, I might say my only study, is man," 4 
explains not only Borrow's Gypsyism, but also his 
casual philology. Languages he mostly learned that 
he might know men. In youth he read — he had to do 
something during the long office hours, and he read 

1 Introduction to Lavengro. The Little Library, Methuen, 2 vols., 
1, xxiii.-xxiv. C. G. Leland expressed himself to the same effect. 

2 Academy, 13th July 1874. 3 Wild Wales, page 186. 
4 The Bible in Spain, page 64. 



xxi.] PHILOLOGY AND HORSES 341 

Danish and Welsh literature ; but he did not trouble 
himself much with the literary wealth of other countries, 
beyond dipping into it. He had a brain of his own, 
and preferred to form theories from the knowledge he had 
acquired first hand, a most excellent thing for a man of 
the nature of George Borrow, but scarcely calculated to 
advance learning. He hated anything academic. 

" I cannot help thinking," he wrote, " that it was 
fortunate for myself, who am, to a certain extent, a 
philologist, that with me the pursuit of languages has 
been always modified by the love of horses. ... I might, 
otherwise, have become a mere philologist ; one of those 
beings who toil night and day in culling useless words for 
some opus magnum which Murray will never publish and 
nobody ever read — beings without enthusiasm, who, 
having never mounted a generous steed, cannot detect a 
good point in Pegasus himself." l 

This quotation clearly explains Borrow's attitude 
towards philology. As he told the imigri priest, he hoped 
to become something more than a philologist. 

There was nothing in the sale of The Zincali to 
encourage Borrow to proceed with the other books he had 
partially prepared. Nearly seven weeks after publication, 
scarcely three hundred copies had been sold. In the 
spring of the following year (18th March) John Murray 
wrote : " The sale of the book has not amounted to much 
since the first publication ; but in recompense for this the 
Yankees have printed two editions, one for twenty pence 
complete" As Borrow did not benefit from the sale of 
American editions, the news was not quite so comforting 
as it would have been had it referred to the English issue. 
1 Lavengro y page 81. 



CHAPTER XXII 

APRIL 1 84 1 — MARCH 1 844 

P\URING his wanderings in Portugal and Spain 
-■— * Borrow had carried out his intention of keeping a 
journal, from which on several occasions he sent transcrip- 
tions to Earl Street instead of recapitulating in his letters 
the adventures that befell him. Many of his letters went 
astray, which is not strange considering the state of the 
country. The letters and reports that Borrow wrote to 
the Bible Society, which still exist, may be roughly 
divided as follows : — 

From his introduction until the end 

of the Russian expedition . . 17.50 

Used for The Bible in Spain . . 30.00 

Others written during the Spanish 
and Portuguese periods and not used 
for The Bible in Spain . . 5 2 -5° 



100.00 



Thirty per cent, of the whole number of the letters 
was all that Borrow used for The Bible in Spain. In 
addition he had his Journal, and from these two sources 
he obtained all the material he required for the book 
that was to electrify the religious reading-public and make 
famous its writer. 

Between Borrow and Ford a warm friendship had 
sprung up, and many letters passed between them. Ford, 
who was busily engaged upon his Hand-Book, sought 



342 



XXII.] RICHARD FORD'S CRITICISMS 343 

Borrow's advice upon a number of points, in particular 
about Gypsy matters. There was something of the same 
atmosphere in his letters as in those of John Hasfeldt : 
a frank, affectionate interest in Borrow and what affected 
him that it was impossible to resent. " How I wish you 
had given us more about yourself," he wrote to Borrow 
apropos of The Zincali, " instead of the extracts from 
those blunder-headed old Spaniards, who knew nothing 
about Gypsies ! I shall give you ... a hint to 
publish your whole adventures for the last twenty years." 
But Hayim Ben-Attar, son of the miracle, had already 
brought lights, and The Bible in Spain had been begun. 

Ford's counsel was invariably sound and sane. He 
advised El Gitano, as he sometimes called Borrow, 
" to avoid Spanish historians and poetry like Prussic 
acid ; to stick to himself, his biography and queer 
adventures," x to all of which Borrow promised obedience. 
Ford wrote to Borrow (Feb. 1841) suggesting that The 
Bible in Spain should be what it actually was. " I am 
delighted to hear," he wrote, " that you meditate giving 
us your travels in Spain. The more odd personal 
adventures the better, and still more so if dramatic ; that 
is, giving the exact conversations." 

In June 1841 Borrow received from Earl Street the 
originals of his letters to the Bible Society, and when he was 
eventually called upon to return them he retained a number, 
either through carelessness or by design. It was evidently 
understood that there should be no reference to any con- 
tentious matters. Borrow set to work with the aid of his 
" Country Amanuensis " to transcribe such portions of the 
correspondence as he required. The work proceeded slowly. 

" I still scribble occasionally for want of something 
better to do," he informs John Murray, Junr. (23rd Aug. 
1 841), and continues: "... A queer book will be this 
same Bible in Spain, containing all my queer adventures 

1 Ford to John Murray. The Letters of Richard Ford, 1797-1S58. 
Ed. R. E. Prothero, M.V.O., 1905. 



344 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1842 

in that queer country whilst engaged in distributing the 
Gospel, but neither learning, nor disquisitions, fine 
writing, or poetry. A book with such a title and of 
this description can scarcely fail of success." 

Through a dreary summer and autumn he wrote on, 
complaining that there was " scarcely a gleam of sunshine." 
Remote from the world " with not the least idea of what 
is going on save in my immediate neighbourhood," he 
wrote merely to kill time. Such an existence was, to the 
last degree, uncongenial to a man who for years had been 
accustomed to sunshine and a life full of incident and 
adventure. 

He grew restless and ill-content. He had been as free 
as the wind, with occupation for brain and body. He was 
now, like Achilles, brooding in his tent, and over his mind 
there fell a shadow of unrest. As early as July 1841 he 
had thought of settling in Berlin and devoting himself 
to study. Hasfeldt suggested Denmark, the land of the 
Sagas. Later in the same year Africa had presented 
itself to Borrow as a possible retreat, but Ford advised 
him against it as " the land from which few travellers 
return," and told him that he had much better go to 
Seville. Still later Constantinople was considered and then 
the coast of Barbary. Into his letters there crept a note 
of querulous complaint. John Hasfeldt besought him to 
remember how much he had travelled and he would 
find that he had wandered enough, and then he would 
accustom himself to rest. 

The manuscript of The Bible in Spain was completed 
early in January (1842) and despatched to John Murray, 
who sent it to Richard Ford. From the "reader's report" 
it is to be gathered that in addition to the manuscript 
Borrow sent also the letters that he had borrowed from 
the Bible Society. Ford refers to the story of the man 
stung to death by vipers 1 "in the letter of the 16th 

1 Ford to John Murray. The Letters of Richard Ford, 1797- 1858. 
Ed. R. E. Prothero, M.V.O., 1905. 



xxii.] SAGE COUNSEL 345 

August 1837," and advises that "Mr Borrow should 
introduce it into his narrative." He further recommends 
him " to go carefully over the whole of his Letters, as it 
is very probable that other points of interest which they 
contain may have been omitted in the narrative. Some 
of the most interesting letters relate to journies not 
given in the MS." 

The work when it reached Ford was apparently in a 
very rough state. In addition to many mistakes in 
spelling and grammar, a number of words were left 
blank. In a vast number of instances short sentences 
were run together. Mrs Borrow does not appear to have 
been a very successful amanuensis at this period. Perhaps 
the most interesting indication of how much the manu- 
script, as first submitted, differed from the published work 
is shown by one of Ford's criticisms : — 

" In the narrative there are at present two breaks —one 
from about March 1836 to June 1837 [Chapters XIII.-XX.], 
— and the other from November 1S37 to July 1839 
[Chapters XXXVI.-XLIX.] 

This represents a third of the book as finally printed. 
Ford objected to the sudden ending ; but Borrow made 
no alteration in this respect. There were a number of 
other suggestions of lesser importance in this admirable 
piece of technical criticism. Ford disliked Borrow's 
striving to create an air of mystery as " taking an 
unwarrantable liberty with the reader " ; he suggested a 
map and a short biographical sketch of the author, and 
especially the nature of his connection with the Bible 
Society. Finally he gives it as his opinion that it is 
neither necessary nor advisable to insert any of his letters 
to the Bible Society, either in the body of the book or as 
an Appendix. 

" The Dialogues are amongst the best parts of the 
book," Ford wrote ; " but in several of them the tone of 
the speakers, of those especially who are in humble life, 
is too correct and elevated, and therefore out of 



346 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1842 

character. This takes away from their effect. I think it 
would be very advisable that Mr Borrow should go over 
them with reference to this point, simplifying a few of the 
turns of expression and introducing a few contractions — 
dotits, carets, etc. This would improve them greatly." 

This criticism applies to all Borrow's books, in 
particular to the passages dealing with the Gypsies, who, in 
spite of their love of high-sounding words, which they 
frequently misuse, do not speak with the academic 
precision of Borrow's works any more than do peers or 
princes or even pedagogues. Borrow met Ford's criticism 
with the assurance that " the lower classes in Spain are 
generally elevated in their style and scarcely ever descend 
to vulgarity." 

Borrow's first impulse appears to have been to dis- 
regard the suggestion that the two breaks should be filled 
in. On 13th Jan. he wrote to John Murray, Junr. : 

" I have received the MS. and likewise your kind letter. 
. . . Pray thank the Gentleman who perused the MS. in 
my name for his suggestions, which I will attend to. [By 
this it is clear that Borrow was not told that Ford was ' the 
Gentleman.'] I find that the MS. was full of trifling 
mistakes, the fault of my amanuensis ; but I am going- 
through it, and within three days shall have made all the 
necessary corrections." 

No man, of however sanguine a temperament, could 
seriously contemplate the mere transcription of some 
eighty thousand words, in addition to the correction of 
twice that amount of manuscript, within three days. Nine 
days later Borrow wrote again to John Murray, Junr. 
" We are losing time ; I have corrected seven hundred 
consecutive pages of MS., and the remaining two hundred 
will be ready in a fortnight." That he had taken so long 
was due to the fact that the greater part of the preceding 
week had been occupied with other and more exciting 
matters than correcting manuscript. 

" During the last week," he continues, " I have been 
chiefly engaged in horse-breaking. A most magnificent 



xxil] THE FEUD OF THE DOGS 347 

animal has found his way to this neighbourhood — a half- 
bred Arabian — he is at present in the hands of a low- 
horse-dealer ; he can be bought for eight pounds, but no 
person will have him ; it is said that he kills everybody 
who mounts him. I have been charming him, and have so 
far succeeded that at present he does not fling me more 
than once in five minutes. What a contemptible trade is 
the Author's compared to that of the jockey." 

It was not until towards the end of February that the 
corrected manuscript of the first volume of The Bible in 
Spain reached Albemarle Street. Later and better 
counsels had apparently prevailed, and Borrow had 
become reconciled to filling up the breaks. 

Borrow had other occupations than preparing his 
manuscript for the printer's hands. He was ill and over- 
wrought, and small things became magnified out of all 
proportion to their actual importance. There had been a 
dispute between Borrow's dog and that of the rector of 
Oulton, the Rev. E. P. Denniss, and as the place was 
small, the dogs met frequently and renewed their feud. 
Finally the masters of the animals became involved, and 
an interchange of frigid notes ensued. It appears that 
Borrow threatened to appeal to the Law and to the Bishop 
of the Diocese, and further seems to have suggested that 
in the interests of peace, the rector might do away with 
his own dog. The tone of the correspondence may be 
gathered from the following notes : — 1 

" Mr Denniss begs to acknowledge Mr Borrow's note, 
and is sorry to hear that his dog and Mr Borrow's have 
again fallen out. Mr Denniss learns from his servant 
that Mr D's dog was no more in fault than Mr B's, which 
latter is of a very quarrelsome and savage disposition, as 
Mr Denniss can himself testify, as well as many other 
people. Mr Denniss regrets that these two animals 
cannot agree when they meet, but he must decline acced- 
ing to Mr Borrow's somewhat arbitrary demand, conceiv- 
ing he has as much right to retain a favourite, and in 
reality very harmless, animal, as Mr Borrow has to keep 

1 Dr Knapp's Life of George Borrow. 



348 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1842 

a dog which has once bitten Mr Denniss himself, and 
oftentimes attacked him and his family. Mr Borrow is at 
perfect liberty to take any measure he may deem advis- 
able, either before the magistrates or the Bishop of the 
Diocese, as Mr Denniss is quite prepared to meet them." 

"Oulton Rectory, 22nd April 1842." 

Borrow's reply (in the rough draft found among his 
papers after his death) ran : 

" Mr Borrow has received Mr Denniss' answer to his 
note. With respect to Mr Denniss' recrimination on the 
quarrelsome disposition of his harmless house-dog, Mr 
Borrow declines to say anything further. No one knows 
better than Mr Denniss the value of his own assertions. 
. . . Circumstances over which Mr Borrow has at present 
no control will occasionally bring him and his family 
under the same roof with Mr Denniss ; that roof, however, 
is the roof of the House of God, and the prayers of the 
Church of England are wholesome from whatever mouth 
they may proceed." 

Borrow's most partisan admirer could not excuse the 
outrage to all decency contained in the last paragraph of 
his note, if indeed it were ever sent, in any other way than 
to plead the writer's ill-health. 

It had been arranged that The Bible in Spain should 
make its appearance in May. In July Borrow wrote show- 
ing some impatience and urging greater expedition. 

" What are your intentions with respect to the Bible in 
Spain ? " he enquires of John Murray. " I am a frank 
man, and frankness never offends me. Has anybody put 
you out of conceit with the book ? . . . Tell me frankly 
and I will drink your health in Romany. Or would the 
appearance of the Bible on the first of October interfere 
with the avatar, first or second, of some very wonderful 
lion or Divinity, to whom George Borrow, who is neither, 
must of course give place? Be frank with me, my dear 
Sir, and I will drink your health in Romany and 
Madeira." 

He goes on to offer to release John Murray from his 
" share in the agreement " and complete the book himself, 



xxii.] "THIS WILD MISSIONARY" 349 

remitting to the printer " the necessary money for the 
purchase of paper." 

To Ford, who had acted as a sort of godfather to 
The Bible in Spain, it was " a rum, very rum, mixture of 
gypsyism, Judaism, and missionary adventure," as he 
informed John Murray. He read it " with great delight," 
and its publisher may " depend upon it that the book will 
sell, which, after all, is the rub." He liked the sincerity, the 
style, the effect of incident piling on incident. It reminded 
him of Gil Bias with a touch of Bunyan. Borrow is " such 
a trump ... as full of meat as an egg, and a fresh-laid one." 
All this he tells John Murray, and concludes with the assur- 
ance, " Borrow will lay you golden eggs, and hatch them 
after the ways of Egypt ; put salt on his tail and secure 
him in your coop, and beware how any poacher coaxes him 
with 'raisins' or reasons out of the Albemarle preserve." 1 

Ford was never tired of applying new adjectives to 
Borrow and his work. He was " an extraordinary fellow," 
" this wild missionary," " a queer chap." Borrow, on the 
other hand, cherished a sincere regard for the man who 
had shown such enthusiasm for his work. To John 
Murray, Junr., he wrote (4th April 1843) : " Pray remember 
me to Ford, who is no humbug and is one of the few 
beings that I care something about." 

Throughout his correspondence with Borrow, Richard 
Ford showed a judgment and an appreciation of what 
the public would be likely to welcome that stamped him 
as a publishers' " reader " by instinct. Such advice as he 
gave to Borrow in the following letter set up a standard 
of what a book, such as Borrow had it in his power to 
write, actually should be. It unquestionably influenced 
Borrow : — 

\oth June 1842. 

" My advice again and again is to avoid all fine 
writing, all descriptions of mere scenery and trivial 

1 The Letters of Richard Ford, 1797-1858. Edited, R. E. 
Prothero, M.V.O., 1905. 



350 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1842 

events. What the world wants are racy, real, genuine 
scenes, and the more out of the way the better. Poetry 
is utterly to be avoided. If Apollo were to come down 
from Heaven, John Murray would not take his best 
manuscript as a gift. " Stick to yourself, to what you have 
seen, and the people you have mixed with. The more you 
give us of odd Jewish people the better. . . . Avoid words, 
stick to deeds. Never think of how you express yourself; 
for good matter must tell, and no fine writing will make 
bad matter good. Don't be afraid that what you may not 
think good will not be thought so by others. It often 
happens just the reverse. . . . New facts seen in new and 
strange countries will please everybody ; but old scenery, 
even Cintra, will not. We know all about that, and want 
something that we do not know. . . . The grand thing 
is to be bold and to avoid the common track of the silver 
paper, silver fork, blue-stocking. Give us adventure, wild 
adventure, journals, thirty language book, sorcery, Jews, 
Gentiles, rambles, and the interior of Spanish prisons — the 
way you get in, the way you get out. No author has yet 
given us a Spanish prison. Enter into the iniquities, the 
fees, the slang, etc. It will be a little a la Thurtell, but 
you see the people like to have it so. Avoid rant and 
cant. Dialogues always tell ; they are dramatic and give 
an air of reality." 

The Bible in Spain was published ioth December, and 
one of the first copies that reached him was inscribed by 
the author to " Ann Borrow. With her son's best love, 
13th Deer. 1842." 

From the critics there was praise and scarcely anything 
but praise. It was received as a work bearing the unmis- 
takable stamp of genius. Lockhart himself reviewed 
it in The Quarterly Review, confessing the shame he felt 
at not having reviewed The Zincali. " Very good — very 
clever — very neatly done. Only one fault to find — too 
laudatory," was Borrow's comment upon this notice. 

And through the clamour and din of it all, old Mrs 
Borrow wrote to her daughter-in-law telling her of the 
call of an old friend, whom she had not seen for twenty- 
eight years, and who had come to talk with her of the 



xxil] "MURRAY IS IN HIGH BONE" 351 

fame of her son, " the most remarkable man that Dereham 
ever produced. Capt. Girling is a man of few words, but 
when he do speak it is to some purpose." Ford wrote also 
(he was always writing impulsive, boyish letters) telling 
how Borrow's name would " fill the trump of fame," and 
that " Murray is in high bone " about the book. Hasfeldt 
wrote, too, saying that he saw his " friend ' tall George,' 
wandering over the mountains until I ached in every joint 
with the vividness of his descriptions." 

In all this chorus of praise there was the complaint of 
the Dublin Review that " Borrow was a missionary sent 
out by a gang of conspirators against Christianity." 
Borrow's comment upon this notice was that " It is easier 
to call names and misquote passages in a dirty Review 
than to write The Bible in Spain." 

A second edition of The Bible in Spain was issued in 
January, to which the author contributed a preface, " very 
funny, but wild," he assured John Murray, Junr., and he 
promised "yet another preface for the third edition, should 
one be called for." The third edition appeared in March, 
the fourth in June, and the fifth in July. When the 
Fourth Edition was nearing completion Borrow wrote to 
Murray : " Would it be as well to write a preface to this 
fourth edition with a tirade or two against the Pope, and 
allusions to the Great North Road ? " To which Murray 
replied, " With due submission to you as author, I would sug- 
gest that you should not abuse the Pope in the new preface." 

In the flush of his success Borrow could afford to laugh 
at the few cavilling critics. 

" Let them call me a nonentity if they will," he wrote 
to John Murray, Junr. (13th March). " I believe that some 
of those, who say I am a phantom, would alter their tone 
provided they were to ask me to a good dinner ; bottles 
emptied and fowls devoured are not exactly the feats of 
a phantom. No ! I partake more of the nature of a 
Brownie or Robin Goodfellow, goblins, 'tis true, but full 
of merriment and fun, and fond of good eating and 
drinkincr." 



352 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1843 

America echoed back the praise and bought the book 
in thousands. Publishers issued editions in Philadelphia 
and New York ; but Borrow did not participate in the 
profits, as there was then no copyright protection for 
English books in the United States of America. The 
Athenceum reported (27th May 1843) that 30,000 copies 
had been sold in America. " I really never heard of 
anything so infamous," wrote Borrow to his wife. The 
only thing that America gave him was praise and (in 
common with other countries) a place in its biographical 
dictionaries and encyclopaedias. The Bible in Spain was 
translated into French and German and subsequently 
(abridged) into Russian. 

What appeared to please Borrow most was Sir Robert 
Peel's reference to him in the House of Commons, 
although he regretted the scanty report of the speech 
given in the newspapers. Replying to Dr Bowring's (at 
that time Borrow's friend) motion " for copies of the 
correspondence of the British Government with the Porte 
on the subject of the Bishop of Jerusalem," Sir Robert 
remarked : "If Mr Borrow had been deterred by trifling 
obstacles, the circulation of the Bible in Spain would 
never have been advanced to the extent which it had 
happily attained. If he had not .persevered he would 
not have been the agent of so much enlightment." l 

There were many things that contributed to the 
instantaneous success of The Bible in Spain. Apart from 
the vivid picture that it gave of the indomitable courage 
and iron determination of a man commanding success, 
its literary qualities, and enthralling interest, its greatest 
commercial asset lay in its appeal to the Religious Public. 

1 Times, 12th April 1843, Hansard's summary reads: "It might 
have been said, to Mr Borrow with respect to Spain, that it would be 
impossible to distribute the Bible in that country in consequence of 
the danger of offending the prejudices which prevail there ; yet he, a 
private individual, by showing some zeal in what he believed to be 
right, succeeded in triumphing over many obstacles." 



xxil] A GREAT SUCCESS 353 

Never, perhaps, had they been invited to read such a book, 
because never had the Bible been distributed by so 
amazing a missionary as George Borrow. Gil Bias with 
a touch of Bunyan, as Ford delightfully phrased it, and 
not too much Bunyan. Thieves, murderers, gypsies, 
bandits, prisons, wars — all knit together by the missionary 
work of a man who was persona grata with every lawless 
ruffian he encountered, and yet a sower of the seed. The 
Religious Public did not pause to ponder over the strange- 
ness of the situation. They had fallen among thieves, 
and with breathless eagerness were prepared to enjoy to 
the full the novel experience. 

Here was a religious book full of the most exquisite 
material thrills without a suggestion of a spiritual moral. 
Criminals were encountered, their deeds rehearsed and the 
customary sermon upon the evils arising from wickedness 
absent. It was a stimulating drink to unaccustomed 
palates. The Bible in Spain sold in its thousands. 

The accuracy of the book has never been questioned ; 
if it had, Borrow's letters to the Bible Society would 
immediately settle any doubt that might arise. If there 
be one incident in the work that appears invented, 
it is the story of Benedict Moll, the treasure-hunter ; yet 
even that is authentic. In the following letter, dated 22nd 
June 1839, Rey Romero, the bookseller of Santiago, refers 
to the unfortunate Benedict Moll : — 

" The German of the Treasure" he writes, " came here 
last year bearing letters from the Government for the 
purpose of discovering it. But, a few days after his 
arrival, they threw him into prison ; from thence he 
wrote me, making himself known as the one you intro- 
duced to me ; wherefore my son went to see him in 
prison. He told my son that you also had been arrested, 
but I could not credit it. A short time after, they took 
him off to Coruiia ; then they brought him back here 
again, and I do not know what has become of him since." l 

1 This is obviously the letter that Borrow paraphrases at the end 
of Chapter XLII. of The Bible in Spain. 

Z 



354 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1843 

Borrow now became the lion of the hour. He was 
feted and feasted in London, and everybody wanted to 
meet the wonderful white-haired author of The Bible in 
Spain. One day he is breakfasting with the Prussian 
Ambassador, " with princes and members of Parliament, I 
was the star of the morning," he writes to his wife. " I 
thought to myself ' what a difference ! ' " Later he was 
present at a grand soiree, " and the people came in throngs 
to be introduced to me. To-night," he continues, " I am 
going to the Bishop of Norwich, to-morrow to another 
place, and so on." x 

Borrow had been much touched by the news of the 
death of Allan Cunningham (1785-1842). 

" Only think, poor Allan Cunningham dead ! " he 
wrote to John Murray, Junr. (25th Nov. 1842). " A young 
man — only fifty-eight — strong and tall as a giant; might 
have lived to a hundred and one, but he bothered himself 
about the affairs of this world far too much. That statue 
shop was his bane ; took to book making likewise, in a 
word too fond of Mammon — awful death — no preparation 
— came literally upon him like a thief in the dark. Am 
thinking of writing a short life of him ; old friend — twenty 
years' standing, knew a good deal about him ; Traditional 
Tales his best work. . . . 

" Pray send Dr Bowring a copy of Bible. Lives No. 1, 
Queen Square, Westminster, another old friend. Send 
one to Ford — capital fellow. Respects to Mr M. God 
bless you. Feel quite melancholy, Ever yours." 

In these Jinglelike periods Borrow pays tribute to the 
man who praised his Romantic Ballads and contributed 
a prefatory poem. He returned to the subject ten days 
later in another letter to John Murray, Junr. " I can't 
get poor Allan out of my head," he wrote. " When I come 
up I intend to go and see his wife. What a woman ! " 

Fame did not dispel from Borrow's mind the old 

1 In the Appendix to The Romany Rye Borrow wrote, " Having 
the proper pride of a gentleman and a scholar, he did not, in the year 
'43, choose to permit himself to be exhibited and made a zany of in 
London." Page 355. 



xxil] A WAVE OF PESSIMISM 355 

restlessness, the desire for action. He was still unwell, 
worried at the sight of " Popery . . . springing up in every 
direction . . . There's no peace in this world." 1 A cold 
contracted by his wife distressed him to the point of 
complaining that "there is little but trouble in this world ; 
I am nearly tired of it." 2 Exercise failed to benefit him. 
He was suffering from languor and nervousness. And 
through it all that Spartan woman who had committed 
the gravest of matrimonial errors, that of marrying a 
genius, soothed and comforted the sick lion, tired even of 
victory. 

Small things troubled him and honours awakened in 
him no enthusiasm. The Times in reviewing The Bible in 
Spain had inferred that he was not a member of the 
Church of England, 3 and the statement " must be con- 
tradicted." The Royal Institution was prepared to confer 
an honour upon him, and he could not make up his mind 
whether or not to accept it. 

" What would the Institute expect me to write ? " he 
enquires of John Murray, Junr., 25th Feb. 1843. "(I have 
exhausted Spain and the Gypsies.) Would an essay on 
the Welsh language and literature suit, with an account 
of the Celtic tongues ? Or would something about the 
ancient North and its literature be more acceptable ? . . . 
Had it been the Royal Academy, I should have consented 
at once, a"nd do hereby empower you to accept in my 
name any offer which may be made from that quarter. I 
should very much like to become an Academician, the 
thing would just suit me, more especially as ' they do not 
want clever men, but safe men.' Now I am safe enough, 
ask the Bible Society, whose secrets I have kept so much 

1 Letters to John Murray, 27th Jan. and 13th March, 1843. 

2 Letters to John Murray, 27th Jan. and 13th March, 1843. 

3 Borrow wrote later on that he was "a sincere member of the old- 
fashioned Church of England, in which he believes there is more 
religion, and consequently less cant, than in any other Church in the 
world" {The Romany Rye, page 346). On another occasion he gave 
the following reason for his adherence to it : " Because I believe it is 
the best religion to get to heaven by" {Wild Wales, page 520). 



356 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1843 

to their satisfaction, that they have just accepted at my 
hands an English Gypsy Gospel gratis" l 

He declined an invitation to join the Ethnological 
Society. 

" Who are they ? " he enquires in the same letter. " At 
present I am in great demand. A Bishop has just requested 
me to visit him. The worst of these Bishops is that they 
are all skinflints, saving for their families ; their cuisine 
is bad and their Port-wine execrable, and as for their 
cigars . . . ." 

Borrow strove to quiet his spirit by touring about 
Norfolk, " putting up at dead of night in country towns 
and small villages." He returned to Oulton at the end 
of a fortnight, having tired himself and knocked up his 
horse. Even the news that a new edition of The Bible in 
Spain was required could not awaken in him any 
enthusiasm. He was glad the book had sold, as he knew 
it would, and he would like a rough estimate of the profits. 
A few days later he writes to John Murray, Junr., with 
reference to a new edition of The Zincali, saying that he 
finds " that there is far more connection between the first 
and second volumes than he had imagined," and begging 
that the reprint may be the same as the first. " It would 
take nearly a month to refashion the book," he continues, 
" and I believe a month's mental labour at the present time 
would do me up." The weather in particular affected him. 
For years he had been accustomed to sun-warmed Spain, 
and the gloom and greyness of England depressed him. 

" Strange weather this," he had written to John Murray 
(31st Dec. 1842) — "very unwholesome I believe both for 
man and beast. Several people dead and great mortality 
amongst the cattle. Am intolerably well myself, but 
get but little rest — disagreeable dreams — digestion not 
quite so good as I could wish — been on the water system — 
won't do — have left it off, and am now taking lessons 
in singing." 

1 No trace can be found among the Bible Society Records of any 
such translation. 



xxii.] A NEW CURE FOR INDIGESTION 357 

Many men have earned the reputation of madness for less 
eccentric actions than taking lessons in singing as a cure 
for indigestion, after the failure of the water cure. 

Although he was receiving complimentary letters from 
all quarters and from people he had never even heard of, 
he seemed acutely unhappy. 

" I did wrong," he writes to his wife from London (29th 
May 1843), "not to bring you when I came, for without 
you I cannot get on at all. Left to myself, a gloom comes 
upon me which I cannot describe. I will endeavour to be 
home on Thursday, as I wish so much to be with you, 
without whom there is no joy for me nor rest. You tell 
me to ask for situations, etc. I am not at all suited for 
them. My place seems to be in our own dear cottage, 
where, with your help, I hope to prepare for a better 
world. ... I dare say I shall be home on Thursday, 
perhaps earlier, if I am unwell ; for the poor bird when in 
trouble has no one to fly to but his mate." And a few 
days later : " I wish I had not left home. Take care of 
yourself. Kiss poor Hen." 

During his stay in London, Borrow sat to Henry 
Wyndham Phillips, R.A., for his portrait. 1 On 21st June 
John Murray wrote : " I have seen your portrait. Phillips 
is going to saw off a bit of the panel, which will give you 
your proper and characteristic height. Next year you will 
doubtless cut a great figure in the Exhibition. It is the 
best thing young Phillips has done." The painting was 
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844 as "George 
Borrow, Esq., author of The Bible in Spain" and is now 
in the possession of Mr John Murray. 

There is a story told in connection with the painting 
of this portrait. Borrow was a bad sitter, and visibly 
chafed at remaining indoors doing nothing. To overcome 
this restlessness the painter had recourse to a clever strata- 
gem. He enquired of his sitter if Persian were really a 
fine language, as he had heard ; Borrow assured him that it 

1 This portrait has sometimes been ascribed to Thomas Phillips, 
R.A., in error. 



358 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1843 

was, and at Phillips' request, started declaiming at the top 
of his voice, his eyes flashing with enthusiasm. When he 
ceased, the wily painter mentioned other tongues, Turkish, 
Armenian, etc., in each instance with the same result, and 
the painting of the portrait became an easy matter. 

On 23rd June John Murray (the Second) died, at the 
age of sixty-five, and was succeeded by his son. " Poor 
old Murray ! " Ford wrote to Borrow, " We shall never see 
his like again. He . . . was a fine fellow in every respect." 
In another letter he refers to him as " that Prince of 
Bibliophiles, poor, dear, old Murray." Borrow's own 
relations with John Murray had always been most cordial. 
On one occasion, when writing to his son, he says : " I shall 
be most happy to see you and still more your father, whose 
jokes do one good. I wish all the world were as gay as 
he." Then without a break, he goes on to deplore the fact 
that " a gentleman drowned himself last week on my 
property. I wish he had gone somewhere else." Such 
was George Borrow. 

For some time past Borrow's thoughts had been 
directed towards obtaining a Government post abroad. 
The sentence, " You tell me to ask for situations, etc.," in 
a letter to his wife had reference to this ambition. He 
had previously (21st June 1841) written to Lord Clarendon 
suggesting for himself a consulship ; but the reply had not 
been encouraging. It was " quite hopeless to expect a 
consulship from Lord Palmerston, the applicants were too 
many and the appointments too few." 

Borrow recognised the stagnation of his present life. 

" I wish the Government would give me some command 
in Ireland which would call forth my energies," he wrote to 
John Murray (25th Oct. 1843). " If there be an outbreak 
there I shall apply to them at once, for my heart is with 
them in the present matter : I hope they will be firm, and 
they have nothing to fear; I am sure that the English 
nation will back them, for the insolence and ingratitude 
of the Irish, and the cowardice of their humbug chief, have 
caused universal disgust." Later he wrote, also to John 




JOHN MURRAY THE THIRD 
(From a photograph by Maull and Fox). 



[ To face page 35S 



xxii.] SHARING THE PROFITS 359 

Murray, with reference to that " trumpery fellow O'Connell. 
... I wish I were acquainted with Sir. Robert Peel. I 
could give him many a useful hint with respect to Ireland 
and the Irish. I know both tolerably well. Whenever 
there's a row I intend to go over with Sidi Habismilk and 
put myself at the head of a body of volunteers." 

He had previously written " the old Duke [Wellington] 
will at last give salt eel to that cowardly, bawling vagabond 
O'Connell." Borrow detested O'Connell as a " Dublin 
bully ... a humbug, without courage or one particle of 
manly feeling." Again (17th June) he had written: 
" Horrible news from Ireland. I wish sincerely the black- 
guards would break out at once ; they will never be quiet until 
they have got a sound licking, and the sooner the better." 

The finer side of Borrow's character was shown in his 
eagerness to obtain employment. There is a touch of 
pathos in the sight of this knight, armed and ready to 
fight anything for anybody, wasting his strength and his 
talents in feuds with his neighbours. 

In the profits on the old and the preparation of new 
editions of The Bible in Spain, Borrow took a keen 
interest. The money he was making enabled him to 
assist his wife in disembarrassing her estate. " I begin to 
take considerable pleasure in making money," he wrote to 
his publisher, " which I hope is a good sign ; for what is life 
unless we take pleasure in something?" Again he 
enquires, " Why does not the public call for another edition 
of them [T/ie Gypsies of Spain]. You see what an un- 
conscionable rascal I am becoming." During his lifetime 
Borrow received from the firm of Murray, £3437, 19s., 
most of which was on account of The Bible in Spain and, 
consequently, was paid to him during the first years of his 
association with Albemarle Street. 

Caroline Fox gives an interesting picture of Borrow 
at this period as he appeared to her : — 

"25M Oct. 1843. 

" Catherine Gurney gave us a note to George Borrow, 
so on him we called, — a tall, ungainly, uncouth man, with 



360 THE BIBLE IN SPAIN APPEARS [1843 

great physical strength, a quick penetrating eye, a confident 
manner, and a disagreeable tone and pronunciation. He 
was sitting on one side of the fire, and his old mother on 
the other. His spirits always sink in wet weather, and to- 
day was very rainy, but he was courteous and not 
displeased to be a little lionised, for his delicacy is not of 
the most susceptible. He talked about Spain and the 
Spaniards ; the lowest classes of whom, he says, are the 
only ones worth investigating, the upper and middle class 
being (with exceptions, of course) mean, selfish, and proud 
beyond description. They care little for Roman Catholi- 
cism, and bear faint allegiance to the Pope. They generally 
lead profligate lives, until they lose all energy and then 
become slavishly superstitious. He said a curious thing of 
the Esquimaux, namely, that their language is a most 
complex and highly artificial one, calculated to express 
the most delicate metaphysical subtleties, yet they have 
no literature, nor are there any traces of their ever having 
had one — a most curious anomaly ; hence he simply argues 
that you can ill judge of a people by their language." l 

One of the strangest things about Borrow's personality 
was that it almost invariably struck women unfavourably. 
That he himself was not indifferent to women is shown by 
the impression made upon him by the black eyes of one 
of the Misses Mills of Saxham Hall, where he was taken to 
dinner by Dr Hake, who states that " long afterwards, his 
inquiries after the black eyes were unfailing." 2 He was 
also very kind and considerate to women. " He was 
very polite and gentlemanly in ladies' society, and we 
all liked him," wrote one woman friend 3 who frequently 
accompanied him on his walks. She has described him as 
walking along " singing to himself or quite silent, quite 
forgetting me until he came to a high hill, when he would 
turn round, seize my hand, and drag me up. Then he 
would sit down and enjoy the prospect." 4 

1 Memories of Old Friends ( 1 835-1 87 1 ). London 1 882. 

2 Memories of Eighty Years, page 164. 

3 EQizabeth] H[arvey] in The Eastern D lily Press, 1st Oct. 1892. 

4 Elizabeth] Hfarvey] in The Eastern Daily Express, rst 
Oct. 1892. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

MARCH 1844 — 1848 

TN March 1844 Borrow, unable longer to control the 
-*- Wanderlust within him, gave up the struggle, and 
determined to make a journey to the East. He was in 
London on the 20th, as Lady Eastlake (then Miss Elizabeth 
Rigby) testifies in her Journal. " Borrow came in the 
evening," she writes : " now a fine man, but a most dis- 
agreeable one ; a kind of character that would be most 
dangerous in rebellious times — one that would suffer or 
persecute to the utmost. His face is expressive of wrong- 
headed determination." 1 

He left London towards the end of April for Paris, 
from which he wrote to John Murray, 1st May : — 

" Vidocq wishes very much to have a copy of my 
Gypsies of Spain, and likewise one of the Romany Gospels. 
On the other side you will find an order on the Bible 
Society for the latter, and perhaps you will be so kind as 
to let one of your people go to Earl Street to procure it. 
You would oblige me by forwarding it to your agent in 
Paris, the address is Monsr. Vidocq, Galerie Vivienne, 
No. 13. . . . V. is a strange fellow, and amongst other 
things dabbles in literature. He is meditating a work 
upon Les Bohemiens, about whom I see he knows nothing 
at all. I have no doubt that the Zincali, were it to fall 
into his hands, would be preciously gutted, and the best 
part of the contents pirated. By the way, could you not 

1 Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake, ed. by C. E. 
Smith, 1895. 

361 



362 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1844 

persuade some of the French publishers to cause it to be 
translated, in which event there would be no fear. Such a 
work would be sure to sell. I wish Vidocq to have a copy 
of the book, but I confess I have my suspicions ; he is so 
extraordinarily civil." 

From Paris he proceeded to Vienna, and thence into 
Hungary and Transylvania, where he remained for some 
months. He is known to have been " in the steppe of 
Debreczin," 1 to Koloszvar, through Nagy-Szeben, or 
Hermannstadt, on his journey through Roumania to 
Bucharest. He visited Wallachia " for the express purpose 
of discoursing with the Gypsies, many of whom I found 
wandering about." 2 

So little is known of Borrcw's Eastern Journey that 
the following account, given by an American, has a 
peculiar interest : — 

" My companions, as we rode along, related some 
marvellous stories of a certain English traveller who had 
been here [near Grosswardein] and of his influence over 
the Gypsies. One of them said that he was walking out 
with him one day, when they met a poor gypsy woman. 
The Englishman addressed her in Hungarian, and she 
answered in the usual disdainful way. He changed his 
language, however, and spoke a word or two in an 
unknown tongue. The woman's face lighted up in an 
instant, and she replied in the most passionate, eager 
way, and after some conversation dragged him away 
almost with her. After this the English gentleman 
visited a number of their most private gatherings and 
was received everywhere as one of them. He did more 
good among them, all said, than all the laws over them, 
or the benevolent efforts for them, of the last half century. 
They described his appearance — his tall, lank, muscular 
form, and mentioned that he had been much in Spain, 
and I saw that it must be that most ubiquitous of 
travellers, Mr Borrow." 3 

This was the fame most congenial to Borrow's strange 

1 The Romany Rye, page 344. 

2 Dr Knapp's Life of George Borrow, ii. 44. 

3 Hungary in 185 1. By Charles L. Brace. 



xxiii.] BORROWS CONCEPTION OF FAME 363 

nature. Dinners, receptions, and the like caused him to 
despise those who found pleasure in such "crazy 
admiration for what they called gentility." It was his 
foible, as much as "gentility nonsense" was theirs, to 
find pleasure in the role of the mysterious stranger, who 
by a word could change a disdainful gypsy into a fawning, 
awe-stricken slave. Fame to satisfy George Borrow must 
carry with it something of the greatness of Olympus. 

A glimpse of Borrow during his Eastern tour is 
obtained from Mrs Borrow's letters to John Murray. 
After telling him that she possesses a privilege which many 
wives do not (viz.), permission to open her Husband's 
letters during his absence, she proceeds : — 

" The accounts from him are, I am thankful to say, 
very satisfactory. It is extraordinary with what marks 
of kindness even Catholics of distinction treat him when 
they know who he is, but it is clearly his gift of tongues 
which causes him to meet with so many adventures, several 
of which he has recorded of a most singular nature." l 

At Vienna Borrow had arranged to wait until he 
should receive a letter from his wife, " being very anxious 
to know of his family," as Mrs Borrow informed John 
Murray (24th July). 

" Thus far," she continues, " thanks be to God, he has 
prospered in his journey. Many and wonderful are the 
adventures he has met with, which I hope at no distant 
period may be related to his friends. Doctor Bowring 
was very kind in sending me flattering tidings of my 
Husband." 

Borrow was at Constantinople on 17th Sept. when he 
drew on his letter of credit. Leland tells an anecdote 
about Borrow at Constantinople ; but it must be re- 
membered that it was written when he regarded Borrow 
with anything but friendly feelings : — 

" Sir Patrick Colquhoun told me that once when he 
was at Constantinople, Mr Borrow came there, and gave 

1 Mrs Borrow to John Murray, 4th June 1844. 



364 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1844 

it out that he was a marvellous Oriental scholar. But 
there was great scepticism on this subject at the Legation, 
and one day at the table d'hdte, where the great writer and 
divers young diplomatists dined, two who were seated 
on either side of Borrow began to talk Arabic, speaking 
to him, the result being that he was obliged to confess 
that he not only did not understand what they were 
saying, but did not even know what the language was. 
Then he was tried in Modern Greek, with the same 
result." l 

The story is obviously untrue. Had Borrow been 
ignorant of Arabic he would not have risked writing to 
Dr Bowring (nth Sept. 1831 ; see ante, page 85) express- 
ing his enthusiasm for that language. Arabic had, appar- 
ently, formed one of the subjects of his preliminary 
examination at Earl Street. With regard to Modem 
Greek he confessed in a letter to Mr Brandram (12th 
June 1839), "though I speak it very ill, I can make 
myself understood." 

Having obtained a Turkish passport, and after being- 
presented to Abdul Medjid, the Sultan, Borrow proceeded 
to Salonika and, crossing Thessaly to Albania, visited 
Janina and Prevesa. He passed over to Corfu, and saw 
Venice and Rome, returning to England by way of 
Marseilles, Paris and Havre. He arrived in London on 
1 6th November, after nearly seven months' absence, to 
find his " home particularly dear to me . . . after my 
long wanderings." 

It is curious that he should have left no record of this 
expedition ; but if he made notes he evidently destroyed 
them, as, with the exception of a few letters, nothing was 
found among his papers relating to the Eastern tour. 
There is evidence that he was occupied with his pen 
during this journey, in the existence at the British 
Museum of his Vocabulary of the Gypsy Language as spoken 
in Hungary and Transylvania, compiled during an ititer- 
course of some months with the Gypsies in those parts in the 
1 Memoirs, C. G. Leland, 1893. 



xxiii.] THE GENIUS OF THE MOSQUE 365 

year 1844, by George Borrow. In all probability he pre- 
pared his Bohemian Grammar at the same time. 1 

From the time that he became acquainted with 
Borrow, Richard Ford had constituted himself the genius 
of La Mezqiuta (the Mosque), as he states the little 
octagonal Summer-house was called. He was for ever 
urging in impulsive, polyglot letters that the curtain to 
be lifted. " Publish your wJiole adventures for the last 
twenty years," he had written.' 2 Ford saw that a man of 
Borrow's nature must have had astonishing adventures, 
and with his pen would be able to tell them in an 
astonishing manner. 

As early as the summer of 1841 Borrow appears to 
have contemplated writing his Autobiography. On the 
eve of the appearance of The Bible in Spain (17th Dec.) 
he wrote to John Murray : " I hope our book will be 
successful ; if so, I shall put another on the stocks. 
Capital subject : early life ; studies and adventures ; 
some account of my father, William Taylor, Whiter, Big 
Ben, etc. etc." 

The first draft of notes for Lavengro, an Autobiography, 
as the book was originally advertised in the announce- 
ment, is extremely interesting. It runs : — 

"Reasons for studying languages: French, Italian, 

D'Eterville. 
Southern tongues. Dante. 

Walks. The Quaker's Home, Mousehold. Petulengro. 
The Gypsies. 

The Office. Welsh. Lhuyd. 
German. Levy. Billy Taylor. 
Danish. Kcempe Viser. Billy Taylor. Dinner. 
Bowring. 

Hebrew. The Jew. 
Philosophy. Radicalism. Ranters. 
Thurtell. Boxers. Petulengres." 3 

1 Both these MSS. were acquired by the Trustees of the British 
Museum in 1892 by purchase. The Gypsy Vocabulary runs to fifty- 
four Folios and the Bohemian Grammar to seventeen Folios. 

2 24th April 1 84 1. 3 Dr Knapp's Life of George Borrow, ii. page 5. 



366 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1843 

Lavengro was planned in 1842 and the greater part 
written before the end of the following year, although the 
work was not actually completed until 1846. There are 
numerous references in Borrow's letters of this period to 
the book on which he was then engaged, and he invariably 
refers to it as his Life. On 21st January 1843 he writes 
to John Murray, Junr. : " I meditate shortly a return to 
Barbary in quest of the Witch Hamlet, and my adventures 
in the land of wonders will serve capitally to fill the thin 
volume of My Life, a Drama, By G. B." Again and again 
Borrow refers to My Life. Hasfeldt and Ford also wrote 
of it as the " wonderful life " and " the Biography? 

In his letters to John Murray, Borrow not only refers 
to the book as his Life, but from time to time gives 
crumbs of information concerning its progress. The 
Secretary of the Bible Society has just lent him his letters 
from Russia, " which will be of great assistance in the Life, 
as I shall work them up as I did those relating to Spain. 
The first volume," he continues, "will be devoted to 
England entirely, and my pursuits and adventures in 
early life." He recognises that he must be careful of the 
reputation that he has earned. His new book is to be 
original, as would be seen when it at last appears ; but he 
confesses that occasionally he feels " tremendously lazy." 
On another occasion (27th March 1843) he writes to John 
Murray, Junr. : " I hope by the end of next year that I 
shall have part of my life ready for the press in 3 vols." 
Six months later (2nd Oct. 1843) he writes to John 
Murray : — 

" I wish I had another Bible ready ; but slow and sure 
is my maxim. The book which I am at present about 
will consist, if I live to finish it of a series of Rembrandt 
pictures interspersed here and there with a Claude. I 
shall tell the world of my parentage, my early thoughts and 
habits ; how I became a sap-engro, or viper-catcher ; my 
wanderings with the regiment in England, Scotland and 
Ireland. . . . Then a great deal about Norwich, Billy 
Taylor, Thurtell, etc. ; how I took to study and became a 



xxm.] FORD VISITS BORROW 367 

lav-engro. What do you think of this as a bill of fare for 
the first Vol. ? The second will consist of my adventures 
in London as an author in the year '23 {sic), adventures on 
the Big North Road in '24 {sic), Constantinople, etc. The 
third — but I shall tell you no more of my secrets." 

In a letter to John Murray (25th Oct. 1843), the title is 
referred to as Lavengro : A Biography. It is to be " full 
of grave fun and solemn laughter like the Bible." On 6th 
December he again writes : — 

" I do not wish for my next book to be advertised yet ; 
I have a particular reason. The Americans are up to 
everything which affords a prospect of gain, and I should 
not wonder that, provided I were to announce my title, 
and the book did not appear forthwith, they would write 
one for me and send forth their trash into the world under 
my name. For my own part I am in no hurry," he pro- 
ceeds. " I am writing to please myself, and am quite sure 
that if I can contrive to please myself, I shall please the 
public also. Had I written a book less popular than the 
Bible, I should be less cautious ; but I know how much is 
expected from me, and also know what a roar of exultation 
would be raised by my enemies (and I have plenty) were I 
to produce anything that was not first rate." 

Time after time he insists upon his determination to 
publish nothing that is not " as good as the last." " I shall 
go on with my Life," he writes to Ford (9th Feb. 1844), 
" but slowly and lazily. What I write, however, is good. 
I feel it is good, strange and wild as it is." l 

From 24th-27th Jan. 1 844 that " most astonishing fellow " 
Richard Ford visited Borrow at Oulton, urging again in 
person, most likely, the lifting of the veil that obscured 
those seven mysterious years. Ford has himself described 
this visit to Borrow in a letter written from Oulton Hall. 

" I am here on a visit to El Gitano ; " he writes, " two 
' rum ' coves, in a queer country. ... we defy the elements, 
and chat over las cosas de Espana, and he tells me portions 

1 As late even as 13th March 1851, Dr Hake wrote to Mrs 
Borrow : " He [Borrow] had better carry on his biography in three 
more volumes. 



368 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1844 

of his life, more strange even than his book. We scamper 
by day over the country in a sort of gig, which reminds 
me of Mr Weare on his trip with Mr THURTELL 
[Borrow's old preceptor] ; ' Sidi Habismilk ' is in the stable 
and a Zamarra [sheepskin coat] now before me, writing 
as I am in a sort of summer-house called La Mezquita, in 
which El Gitano concocts his lucubrations, and paints his 
pictures, for his object is to colour up and poetise his 
adventures." 

By this last sentence Ford showed how thoroughly he 
understood Borrow's literary methods. A fortnight later 
Borrow writes to Ford : — 

" You can't think how I miss you and our chats by the 
fireside. The wine, now I am alone, has lost its flavour, 
and the cigars make me ill. I am frequently in my valley 
of the shadows, and had I not my summer jaunt [the 
Eastern Tour] to look forward to, I am afraid it would be 
all up with your friend and Batushka." 

The Eastern Tour considerably interfered with the 
writing of Lavengro. There was a seven months' break ; 
but Borrow settled down to work on it again, still deter- 
mined to take his time and produce a book that should be 
better than The Bible in Spain. 

Ford's Hand-Book for Travellers in Spain and Readers 
at Home appeared in 1845, a work that had cost its author 
upwards of sixteen years of labour. In a letter to Borrow 
he characterised it as "a rum book and has queer stuff in 
it, although much expurgated for the sake of Spain." 
Ford was very anxious that Borrow should keep the 
promise that he had given two years previously to review 
the Hand-Book when it appeared. " You will do it 
magnificently. ' Thou art the man,' " Ford had written 
with the greatest enthusiasm. On 2nd June an article of 
thirty-seven folio pages was despatched by Borrow to John 
Murray for The Quarterly Review, with the following from 
Mrs Borrow : — 

" With regard to the article, it must not be received 
as a specimen of what Mr Borrow would have produced 



xxiii.] BORROW AS REVIEWER 369 

had he been well, but he considered his promise to Mr 
Ford sacred — and it is only to be wished that it had been 
written under more favourable circumstances." Borrow 
was ill at the time, having been " very unwell for the last 
month," as Mrs Borrow explains, " and particularly so 
lately. Shivering fits have been succeeded by burning fever, 
till his strength was much reduced ; and he at present 
remains in a low, and weak state, and what is worse, we 
are by no means sure that the disease is subdued." 

Ford saw in Borrow " a crack reviewer." "... You 
have," he assured him in 1843, " on ly to write a long letter, 
having read the book carefully and thought over the 
subject." Ford also wrote to Borrow (26th Oct. 1843): 
" I have written several letters to Murray recommending 
them to bag you forthwith, unless they are demented." 
There was no doubt in his, Ford's, mind as to the accept- 
ance of Borrow's article. 

" If insanity does not rule the Q. R. camp, they will 
embrace the offer with open arms in their present Erebus 
state of dullness," he tells Borrow, then, with a burst of 
confidence continues, " But, barring politics, I confi- 
dentially tell you that the Ed[z'nburg/i] Rev. does business 
in a more liberal and more business-like manner than 
the Q\_uarterly>\ Rev. I am always dunning this into 
Murray's head. More flies are caught with honey than 
vinegar. Soft sawder, especially if plenty of gold goes 
into the composition, cements a party and keeps earnest 
pens together. I grieve, for my heart is entirely with 
the Q. R., its views and objects." 

The article turned out to be, not a review of the Hand- 
Book, but a bitter attack on Spain and her rulers. The 
second part was to some extent germane to the subject, 
but it appears to have been more concerned with Borrow's 
view of Spain and things Spanish than with Ford's book. 
Lockhart saw that it would not do. In a letter to John 
Murray he explains very clearly and very justly the 
objections to using the article as it stood. 

"I am very sorry," he writes (13th June), "after 
Borrow has so kindly exerted himself during illness, that 

2 A 



370 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1845 

I must return his paper. I read the MS. with much 
pleasure ; but clever and brilliant as he is sure always 
to be, it was very evident that he had not done such an 
article as Ford's merits required ; and I therefore intended 
to adopt Mr Borrow's lively diatribe, but interweave with 
his matter and add to it, such observations and extracts 
as might, I thought, complete the paper in a review sense. 

" But it appears that Mr B. won't allow anybody to 
tamper with his paper ; therefore here it is. It will be 
highly ornamental as it stands to any Magazine, and 
I have no doubt either Blackwood or Fraser or Colburn 
will be [only] too happy to insert it next month, if 
applied to now. 

" Mr Borrow would not have liked that, when his 
Bible in Spain came out, we should have printed a brilliant 
essay by Ford on some point of Spanish interest, but 
including hardly anything calculated to make the public 
feel that a new author of high consequence had made his 
appearance among us — one bearing the name, not of 
Richard Ford, but of George Borrow." 

Lockhart was right and Borrow was wrong. There 
is no room for equivocation. Borrow should have sunk 
his pride in favour of his friendship for Ford, who had, 
even if occasionally a little tedious in his epistolary 
enthusiasm, always been a loyal friend ; but Borrow was 
ill and excuses must be made for him. Lockhart wrote 
also to Ford describing Borrow's paper as "just another 
capital chapter of his Bible in Spain" which he had read 
with delight, but there was " hardly a word of review, and 
no extract giving the least notion of the peculiar merits 
and style especially, of the Hand-Book." " He is unwell," 
continued Lockhart, " I should be very sorry to bother 
him more at present; and, moreover, from the little he 
has said of your style, I am forced to infer that a review 
of your book by him would never be what I could feel 
authorised to publish in the Q. R." The letter concludes 
with a word of condolence that the Hand-Book will have 
to be committed to other hands. 

Ford realised the difficulty of the situation in which 



xxiii.] THE EMBODIMENT OF EVIL 371 

he was placed, and strove to wriggle out of it by telling 
Borrow that his wife had said all along that 

" ' Borrow can't write anything dull enough for your 
set ; I wonder how I ever married one of them,' — I hope 
and trust you will not cancel the paper, for we can't 
afford to lose a scrap of your queer sparkle and ' thousand 
bright daughters circumvolving.' I have recommended 
its insertion in Blackwood, Fraser, or some of those 
clever Magazines, who will be overjoyed to get such a 
hand as yours, and I will bet any man £5 that your 
paper will be the most popular of all they print." 

It is evident that Ford was genuinely distressed, and 
in his anxiety to be loyal to his friend rather overdid 
it. His letter has an air of patronage that the writer 
certainly never intended. The outstanding feature is 
its absolute selflessness. Ford never seems to think of 
himself, or that Borrow might have made a concession 
to their friendship. Happy Ford ! The unfortunate 
episode estranged Borrow from Ford. Letters between 
them became less and less frequent and finally ceased 
altogether, although Borrow did not forget to send to his 
old friend a copy of Lavengro when it appeared. 

Worries seemed to rain down upon Borrow's head 
about this time. Samuel Morton Peto (afterwards Sir 
Samuel) had decided to enrich Lowestoft by improving 
the harbour and building a railway to Reedham, about 
half-way between Yarmouth and Norwich. He was 
authorised by Parliament and duly constructed his line, 
which not even Borrow's anger could prevent from 
passing through the Oulton Estate, between the Hall 
and the Cottage. Borrow could not fight an Act of 
Parliament, which forced him to cross a railway bridge 
on his way to church ; but he never forgave the man 
who had contrived it, or his millions. His first thought 
had been to fly before the invader. All quiet would 
be gone from the place. " Sell and be off," advised 
Ford ; " I hope you will make the railway pay dear 



372 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1845 

for its whistle," quietly observed John Murray. At first 
Borrow was inclined to take Ford's advice and settle 
abroad ; but subsequently relinquished the idea. 

He was not, however, the man quietly to sit down before 
what he conceived to be an unjustifiable outrage to his 
right to be quiet. He never forgave railways, although 
forced sometimes to make use of them. Samuel Morton 
Peto became to him the embodiment of evil, and as 
" Mr Flamson flaming in his coach with a million " he is 
immortalised in The Romany Rye. 

It is said that Sir Samuel boasted that he had made 
more than the price he had paid for Borrow's land out 
of the gravel he had taken from off it. On one occasion, 
after he had bought Somerleyton Hall, happening to 
meet Borrow, he remarked that he never called upon 
him, and Borrow remembering the boast replied, " I call 
on you ! Do you think I don't read my Shakespeare ? 
Do you think I don't know all about those highwaymen 
Bardolph and Peto ? " x 

The neighbourhood of Oulton appears to have been 
infested with thieves, and poachers found admirable 
" cover " in the surrounding plantations, or small woods. 
On several occasions Borrow himself had been attacked 
at night on the highway between Lowestoft and Oulton. 
Once he had even been shot at and nearly overpowered. 
John Murray (the Second) on hearing of one of these 
assaults had written (1841) artfully enquiring, "Were 
your wood thieves Gypsies, and have the C ale's got notice 
of your publication [T/ie Zlncali]?" 

Borrow had written to John Murray, Junr. (10th May 
1842):— 

" I have been dreadfully unwell since I last heard from 
you — a regular nervous attack. At present I have a bad 
cough, caught by getting up at night in pursuit of 
poachers and thieves. A horrible neighbourhood this — 
not a magistrate dares do his duty." On 18th September 

1 Mr A. Egmont Hake in Athenceum, 13th Aug. 1881. 



xxiii.] MR GLADSTONE'S CRITICISM 373 

1843 he again wrote to John Murray: "One of the 
Magistrates in this district is just dead. Present my 
compliments to Mr Gladstone and tell him that the The 
Bible in Spain would have no objection to become ' a 
great unpaid ! ' " 

Gladstone is said greatly to have admired The Bible in 
Spain, even to the extent of writing to John Murray 
counselling him to have amended a passage that he 
considered ill-advised. Gladstone's letter was sent on to 
Borrow, and he acknowledges its receipt (6th November 
1843) in the following terms : — 

" Many thanks for the perusal of Mr Gladstone's letter. 
I esteem it a high honour that so distinguished a man 
should take sufficient interest in a work of mine as to 
suggest any thing in emendation. I can have no 
possible objection to modify the passage alluded to. It 
contains some strong language, particularly the sentence 
about the scarlet Lady, which it would be perhaps as well 
to omit." 

The offending passage was that in which Borrow says, 
when describing the interior of the Mosque at Tangier : 
" I looked around for the abominable thing, and found it 
not ; no scarlet strumpet with a crown of false gold sat 
nursing an ugly changeling in a niche." In later editions 
the words " no scarlet strumpet," etc., were changed to 
"the besetting sin of the pseudo-Christian Church did not 
stare me in the face in every corner." 

The amendment was little likely to please a Church- 
man of Gladstone's calibre, or procure for the writer the 
magistracy he coveted, even if it had been made less 
grudgingly. " We must not make any further alterations 
here," Borrow wrote to Murray a few days later, " otherwise 
the whole soliloquy, which is full of vigor and poetry, and 
moreover of truth, would be entirely spoiled. As it is, I 
cannot help feeling that [it] is considerably damaged." 
There seems very little doubt that this passage was 
referred to in the letter that John Murray encloses in his 



374 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1847 

of ioth July 1843 1 with this reference: "(The writer of 
the enclosed note is a worthy canon of St Paul's, and 
has evidently seen only the 1st edition)." Borrow 
replied : — 

" Pray present my best respects to the Canon of St 
Paul's and tell him from me that he is a burro, which 
meaneth Jackass, and that I wish he would mind his own 
business, which he might easily do by attending a little 
more to the accommodation of the public in his ugly 
Cathedral." 

Borrow appears to have set his mind on becoming a 
magistrate. He had written to Lockhart (November 
1843) enquiring how he had best proceed to obtain such an 
appointment. Lockhart was not able to give him any very 
definite information, his knowledge of such things, as he 
confessed, " being Scotch." For the time being the matter 
was allowed to drop, to be revived in 1847 by a direct 
application from Borrow to Lord Clarendon to support 
his application with the Lord Chancellor. His claims 
were based upon (1) his being a large landed-proprietor 
in the district (Mrs Borrow had become the owner of the 
Oulton Hall Estate during the previous year) ; (2) the 
fact that the neighbourhood was over-run with thieves 
and undesirable characters ; (3) that there was no magis- 
trate residing in the district. Lord Clarendon promised 
his good offices, but suggested that as all such appoint- 
ments were made through the Lord-Lieutenant of the 
County, the Earl of Stradbroke had better be acquainted 
with what was taking place. This was done through the 
Hon. Wm. Rufus Rous, Lord Stradbroke's brother, whose 
interest was obtained by some of Borrow's friends. 

After a delay of two months, Lord Stradbroke wrote 
to Lord Clarendon that he was quite satisfied with " the 
number and efficiency of the Magistrates" and also 

1 There is something inexplicable about these dates. On 6th 
November Borrow agrees to alter a passage that in the 14th of the 
previous July he refers to as already amended. 



xxiii.] A GYPSY RIOT 375 

with the way in which the Petty Sessions were attended. 
He could hear of no complaint, and when' the time came 
to increase the number of J.P.'s, he would be pleased to 
add Borrow's name to the list, provided he were advised 
to do so by " those gentlemen residing in the neighbour- 
hood, who, living on terms of intimacy with them [the 
Magistrates], will be able to maintain that union of good 
feeling which . . . exists in all our benches of Petty 
Sessions." 

Borrow would have made a good magistrate, provided 
the offender were not a gypsy. He would have caused the 
wrong-doer fear the instrument of the law rather than the 
law itself, and some of his sentences might possibly have 
been as summary as those of Judge Lynch. 

" It was a fine thing," writes a contemporary, "to see 
the great man tackle a tramp. Then he scented the 
battle from afar, bearing down on the enemy with a 
quivering nostril. If the nomad happened to be a gypsy 
he was courteously addressed. But were he a mere native 
tatterdemalion, inclined to be truculent, Borrow's coat was 
off in a moment, and the challenge to decide there and 
then who was the better man flung forth. I have never 
seen such challenges accepted, for Borrow was robust and 
towering." 1 

It is not strange that Borrow's application failed ; for 
he never refused leave to the gypsies to camp upon his 
land, and would sometimes join them beside their camp- 
fires. Once he took a guest with him after dinner to 
where the gypsies were encamped. They received Borrow 
with every mark of repect. Presently he " began to 
intone to them a song, written by him in Romany, 
which recounted all their tricks and evil deeds. The 
gypsies soon became excited ; then they began to kick 
their property about, such as barrels and tin cans ; then 
the men began to fight and the women to part them ; 

1 Vestiges of Borrow : Some Personal Reminiscences, The Globe, 
2 1 st July 1896. 



376 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1847 

an uproar of shouts and recriminations set in, and the 
quarrel became so serious that it was thought prudent to 
quit the scene." 1 " In nothing can the character of a 
people be read with greater certainty and exactness than 
in its songs," 2 Borrow had written. 3 

These disappointments tended to embitter Borrow, 
who saw in them only a conspiracy against him. There 
is little doubt that Lord Stradbroke's enquiries had 
revealed some curious gossip concerning the Master of 
Oulton Hall, possibly the dispute with his rector over the 
inability of their respective dogs to live in harmony ; 
perhaps even the would-be magistrate's predilection for 
the society of gypsies, and his profound admiration for 
" the Fancy " had reached the Lord-Lieutenant's ears. 

The unfortunate and somewhat mysterious dispute 
with Dr Bowring was another anxiety that Borrow had to 
face. He had once remarked, " It's very odd, Bowring, 
that you and I have never had a quarrel." 4 In the 
summer of 1842 he and Bowring seem to have been on 
excellent terms. Borrow wrote asking for the return of 
the papers and manuscripts that had remained in Bowring's 
hands since 1829, when the Songs of Scandinavia was 
projected, as Borrow hoped to bring out during the 
ensuing year a volume entitled Songs of Denmark. The 
cordiality of the letter may best be judged by the fact that 

1 Mr A. Egmont Hake in Athencvum, 13th Aug. 1881. 

2 The Gypsies of Spain, page 287. 

:i " His sympathies were confined to the gypsies. Where he came 
they followed. Where he settled, there they pitched their greasy and 
horribly smelling camps. It pleased him to be called their King. 
He was their Bard also, and wrote songs for them in that language of 
theirs which he professed to consider not only the first, but the finest 
of the human modes of speech. He liked to stretch himself large and 
loose-limbed before the wood fires of their encampment and watch 
their graceful movements among the tents " ( Vestiges of Borrow : 
Some Personal Reminiscences, Globe, 21st July 1896). 

4 This was said in the presence of Mr F. G. Bowring, son of Dr 
Bowring. 



xxiii.] THE CANTON CONSULSHIP 377 

in it he announces his intention of having a copy of the 
forthcoming Bible in Spain sent " to my oldest, I may say 
my only friend." 

In 1847 Bowring wrote to Borrow enquiring as to the 
Russian route through Kiakhta, and asking if he could 
put him in the way of obtaining the information for the 
use of a Parliamentary Committee then enquiring into 
England's commercial relations with China. Borrow's reply 
is apparently no longer in existence ; but it drew from 
Bowring another letter raising a question as to whether 
" ' two hundred merchants are allowed to visit Pekin every 
three years.' Are you certain this is in practice now ? 
Have you ever been to Kiakhta ? " It would appear from 
Bowring's " if summoned, your expenses must be paid by 
the public," that Borrow had suggested giving evidence 
before the Committee, hence Bowring's question as to 
whether Borrow could speak from personal knowledge of 
Kiakhta. 

Borrow's claim against Bowring is that after promising 
to use all his influence to get him appointed Consul at 
Canton, he obtained the post for himself, passing off 
as his own the Manchu-Tartar New Testament that 
Borrow had edited in St Petersburg. There is absolutely 
no other evidence than that contained in Borrow's 
Appendix to The Romany Rye. There is very little doubt 
that Bowring was a man who had no hesitation in seizing 
everything that presented itself and turning it, as far as 
possible, to his own uses. In this he was doing what most 
successful men have done and will continue to do. He 
had been kind to Borrow, and had helped him as far as 
lay in his power. He no doubt obtained all the informa- 
tion he could from Borrow, as he would have done from 
anyone else ; but he never withheld his help. It has been 
suggested that he really did mention Borrow as a 
candidate for the Consulship and later, when in financial 
straits and finding that Borrow had no chance of obtaining 
it, accepted Lord Palmerston's offer of the post for himself. 



378 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1847 

It is, however, idle to speculate what actually happened. 
What resulted was that Bowring as the " Old Radical " 
took premier place in the Appendix-inferno that closed 
The Romany Rye} 

Fate seemed to conspire to cause Borrow chagrin. 
Early in 1847 it came to his knowledge that there were in 
existence some valuable Codices in certain churches and 
convents in the Levant. In particular there was said to 
be an original of the Greek New Testament, supposed to 
date from the fourth century, which had been presented 
to the convent on Mount Sinai by the Emperor 
Justinian. Borrow received information of the existence 
of the treasure, and also a hint that with a little address, 
some of these priceless manuscripts might be secured to 
the British Nation. It was even suggested that application 
might be made to the Government by the Trustees of the 
British Museum. 2 Borrow's reply to this was an intima- 
tion that if requested to do so he would willingly under- 
take the mission. Nothing, however, came of the project, 
and the remainder of the manuscript of the Greek 
Testament (part of it had been acquired in 1843 by 
Tischendorf) was presented by the monks to Alexander 1 1. 
and it is now in the Imperial Library at St Petersburg. 

The information as to the existence of the manuscripts, 
it is alleged, was given to the Museum Trustees by the 
Hon. Robert Curzon, who had travelled much in Egypt 
and the Holy Land. It was certainly no fault of his that 
the mission was not sent out, and Borrow's subsequent 
antagonism to him and his family is difficult to understand 
and impossible to explain. 

Borrow had achieved literary success : before the year 

1 Mr F. J. Bowring writes : " I was myself present at Borrow's 
last call, when he came to take tea as usual, and not a word of the 
kind [as given in the Appendix], was delivered." 

2 There is no record of any correspondence with Borrow among 
the Museum Archives. Dr F. G. Kenyon, C.B., to whom I am 
indebted for this information, suggests that the communications may 
have been verbal. 



xxiii.] IMPRESSIONS OF BORROW 379 

1847 The Zincali was in its Fourth Edition (nearly 10,000 
copies having been printed) and The Bible in Spain had 
reached its Eighth Edition (nearly 20,000 copies having 
been printed). He was an unqualified success ; yet he 
had been far happier when distributing Testaments in 
Spain. The greyness and inaction of domestic life, even 
when relieved by occasional excursions with Sidi Habismilk 
and the Son of the Miracle, were irksome to his tempera- 
ment, ever eager for occupation and change of scene. He 
was like a war-horse champing his bit during times 
of peace. 

" Why did you send me down six copies [of The 
Zincali]}" he bursts out in a letter to John Murray (29th 
Jan. 1846). " Whom should I send them to ? Do you think 
I have six friends in the world ? Two I have presented 
to my wife and daughter (in law). I shall return three 
to you by the first opportunity." 

In 1847, through the Harveys, he became acquainted 
with Dr Thomas Gordon Hake, who was in practice at 
Brighton 1832-37 and at Bury St Edmunds 1839-53, an d 
who was also a poet. The two families visited each other, 
and Dr Hake has left behind him some interesting stories 
about, and valuable impressions of, Borrow. Dr Hake 
shows clearly that he did not allow his friendship to 
influence his judgment when in his Memoirs he described 
Borrow as 

" one of those whose mental powers are strong, and whose 
bodily frame is yet stronger — a conjunction of forces often 
detrimental to a literary career, in an age of intellectual 
predominance. His temper was good and bad ; his pride 
was humility ; his humility was pride ; his vanity in being 
negative, was one of the most positive kind. He was 
reticent and candid, measured in speech, with an emphasis 
that made trifles significant." l 

This rather laboured series of paradoxes quite fails 
to give a convincing impression of the man. A much 
1 Memoirs of Eighty Years. By Dr Gordon Hake, 1892. 



380 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1847 

better idea of Borrow is to be found in a letter (1847) 
by a fellow-guest at a breakfast given by the Prussian 
Ambassador. He writes that there was present 

" the amusing author of The Bible in Spain, a man who is 
remarkable for his extraordinary powers as a linguist, and 
for the originality of his character, not to speak of the 
wonderful adventures he narrates, and the ease and facility 
with which he tells them. He kept us laughing a good 
part of breakfast time by the oddity of his remarks, as 
well as the positiveness of his assertions, often rather 
startling, and like his books partaking of the marvellous." * 

Abandoning paradox, Dr Hake is more successful in 
his description of Borrow's person. 

" His figure was tall," he tells us, " and his bearing very 
noble ; he had a finely moulded head, and thick white 
hair — white from his youth ; his brown eyes were soft, yet 
piercing ; his nose somewhat of the ' Semitic ' type, which 
gave his face the cast of the young Memnon. His mouth 
had a generous curve ; and his features, for beauty and 
true power, were such as can have no parallel in our 
portrait gallery." 2 

When not occupied in writing, Borrow would walk 
about the estate with his animals, between whom 
and their master a perfect understanding existed. Sidi 
Habismilk would come to a whistle and would follow him 

1 Annals of the Harford Family. Privately printed, 1909. Mr 
Theodore Watts-Dunton, in the Athenceum, 25th March 1899, has 
been successful in giving a convincing picture of Borrow : "As to his 
countenance," he writes, "'noble' is the only word that can be used 
to describe it. The silvery whiteness of the thick crop of hair 
seemed to add in a remarkable way to the beauty of the hairless face, 
but also it gave a strangeness to it, and this strangeness was intensified 
by a certain incongruity between the features (perfect Roman-Greek 
in type), and the Scandinavian complexion, luminous and sometimes 
rosy as an English girl's. An increased intensity was lent by the 
fair skin to the dark lustre of the eyes. What struck the observer, 
therefore, was not the beauty but the strangeness of the man's 
appearance." 

2 Memoirs of Eighty Years. By Dr Gordon Hake, 1892. 



xxni.] BORROWS LOVE OF ANIMALS 381 

about, and his two clogs and cat would do the same. 
When he went for a walk the dogs and cat would set out 
with him ; but the cat would turn back after accompany- 
ing him for about a quarter of a mile. 1 

The two young undergraduates who drove in a gig 
from Cambridge to Oulton to pay their respects to Borrow 
{circa 1846) described him as employed 

" in training some young horses to follow him about like 
dogs and come at the call of his whistle. As my two 
friends 2 were talking with him, Borrow sounded his whistle 
in a paddock near the house, which, if I remember rightly, 
was surrounded by a low wall. Immediately two beautiful 
horses came bounding over the fence and trotted up to 
their master. One put his nose into Borrow's outstretched 
hand and the other kept snuffing at his pockets in expecta- 
tion of the usual bribe for confidence and good behaviour." 

Borrow's love of animals was almost feminine. The 
screams of a hare pursued by greyhounds would spoil his 
appetite for dinner, and he confessed himself as " silly 
enough to feel disgust and horror at the squeals of a rat 
in the fangs of a terrier." 3 When a favourite cat was so 
ill that it crawled away to die in solitude, Borrow went in 
search of it and, discovering the poor creature in the 
garden-hedge, carried it back into the house, laid it in a 
comfortable place and watched over it until it died. His 
care of the much persecuted " Church of England cat " at 
Llangollen 4 is another instance of his tender-heartedness 
with regard to animals. 

Borrow had ample evidence that he was still a celebrity. 
" He was much courted ... by his neighbours and by 
visitors to the sea-side," Dr Hake relates ; but unfortun- 
ately he allowed himself to become a prey to moods 
at rather inappropriate moments. As a lion, Borrow 

1 Elizabeth] H[arvey] in The Eastern Daily Press, 1st Oct. 1892. 

2 The story is narrated by Dr Augustus Jessopp in the Aihen&um, 
8th July 1893. 

3 Wild Wales, page 487. 4 Wild Wales, page 36 et sea. 



382 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1847 

accompanied Dr Hake to some in the great houses of the 
neighbourhood. On one occasion they went to dine at 
Hardwick Hall, the residence of Sir Thomas and Lady 
Cullum. The last-named subsequently became a firm 
friend of Borrow's during many years. 

" The party consisted of Lord Bristol ; Lady Augusta 
Seymour, his daughter ; Lord and Lady Arthur Hervey ; 
Sir Fitzroy Kelly ; Mr Thackeray, and ourselves. At 
that date, Thackeray had made money by lectures on 
The Satirists, and was in good swing ; but he never could 
realise the independent feelings of those who happen to 
be born to fortune — a thing which a man of genius should 
be able to do with ease. He told Lady Cullum, which she 
repeated to me, that no one could conceive how it 
mortified him to be making a provision for his daughters 
by delivering lectures ; and I thought she rather sympa- 
thised with him in this degradation. He approached 
Borrow, who, however, received him very dryly. As a 
last attempt to get up a conversation with him, he said, 
' Have you read my Snob Papers in Punch ?'" 

"'In Punch?' asked Borrow. ' It is a periodical I 
never look at ! ' 

" It was a very fine dinner. The plates at dessert were 
of gold ; they once belonged to the Emperor of the 
French, and were marked with his " N " and his Eagle. 

" Thackeray, as if under the impression that the party 
was invited to look at him, thought it necessary to make 
a figure, and absorb attention during the dessert, by 
telling stories and more than half acting them ; the 
aristocratic party listening, but appearing little amused. 
Borrow knew better how to behave in good company, and 
kept quiet ; though, doubtless he felt his mane." 1 

There were other moments when Borrow caused acute 
embarrassment by his rudeness. Once his hostess, a 
simple unpretending woman desirous only of pleasing 
her distinguished guest, said, " Oh, Mr Borrow, I have 
read your books with so much pleasure ! " " Pray, what 
books do you mean, madam ? Do you mean my account 
books ? " was the ungracious retort. He then rose from 
1 Memoirs of Eighty Years. By Dr Gordon Hake, 1892. 



xxiil] UNCOMPROMISING BLUNTNESS 383 

the table, fretting and fuming and walked up and down 
the dining-room among the servants " during the whole of 
the dinner, and afterwards wandered about the rooms and 
passage, till the carriage could be ordered for our return 
home." 1 The reason for this unpardonable behaviour 
appears to have been ill-judged loyalty to a friend. 
His host was a well-known Suffolk banker who, having 
advanced a large sum of money to a friend of Borrow's, 
the heir to a considerable estate, who was in temporary 
difficulties, then "struck the docket" in order to secure 
payment. Borrow confided to another friend that he 
yearned " to cane the banker." His loyalty to his friend 
excuses his wrath ; it was his judgment that was at fault. 
He should undoubtedly have caned the banker, in pre- 
ference to going to his house as a guest and revenging 
his friend upon the gentle and amiable woman who could 
not be held responsible for her husband's business 
transgressions. 

Unfortunate remarks seemed to have a habit of 
bursting from Borrow's lips. When Dr Bowring intro- 
duced to him his son, Mr F. J. Bowring, and with 
pardonable pride added that he had just become a 
Fellow of Trinity, Borrow remarked, " Ah ! Fellows of 
Trinity always marry their bed-makers." Agnes Strick- 
land was another victim. Being desirous of meeting him 
and, in spite of Borrow's unwillingness, achieving her 
object, she expressed in rapturous terms her admiration 
of his works, and concluded by asking permission to send 
him a copy of The Queens of England, to which he ungra- 
ciously replied, " For God's sake, don't, madam ; I should 
not know where to put them or what to do with them." 
" What a damned fool that woman is ! " he remarked to 
W. B. Donne, who was standing by. 2 

There is a world of meaning in a paragraph from one 
of John Murray's (the Second) letters (21st June 1843) to 

1 Memoirs of Eighty Years. By Dr Gordon Hake, 1892. 

2 Memoirs of Eighty Years. By Dr Gordon Hake, 1892. 



384 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1848 

Borrow in which he enquires, " Did you receive a note 
from Mme. Simpkinson which I forwarded ten days ago? 
I have not seen her since your abrupt departure from 
her house." 

It is rather regrettable that the one side of Borrow's 
character has to be so emphasised. He could be just and 
gracious, even to the point of sternly rebuking one who 
represented his own religious convictions and supporting 
a dissenter. After a Bible Society's meeting at Mutford 
Bridge (the nearest village to Oulton Hall), the speakers 
repaired to the Hall to supper. One of the guests, an 
independent minister, became involved in a heated argu- 
ment with a Church of England clergyman, who reproached 
him for holding Calvinistic views. The nonconformist 
replied that the clergy of the Established Church were 
equally liable to attack on the same ground, because the 
Articles of their Church were Calvinistic, and to these they 
had all sworn assent. The reply was that the words were 
not necessarily to be taken in their literal sense. At this 
Borrow interposed, attacking the clergyman in a most 
vigorous fashion for his sophistry, and finally reducing him 
to silence. The Independent minister afterwards confessed 
that he had never heard " one man give another such a 
dressing down as on that occasion." 1 

Borrow was capable of very deep feeling, which is no- 
where better shown than in his retort to Richard Latham 
whom he met at Dr Hake's table. Well warmed by the 
generous wine, Latham stated that he should never do 
anything so low as dine with his publisher. " You do not 
dine with John Murray, I presume?" he added. " Indeed 
I do," Borrow responded with deep emotion. " He is a 
most kind friend. When I have had sickness in the house 
he has been unfailing in his goodness towards me. There 
is no man I more value." 2 

Borrow was a frequent visitor to the Hakes at Bury St 

1 George Borrow hi East Anglia. W. A. Dutt. 

2 Memoirs of Eighty Years. By Dr Gordon Hake, 1892. 



xxiii.] ON DINING WITH PUBLISHERS 385 

Edmunds. W. B. Donne gives a glimpse to him in a 
letter to Bernard Barton (12th Sept. 1848). 

" We have had a great man here — and I have been 
walking with him and aiding him to eat salmon and 
mutton and drink port — George Borrow — and what is 
more we fell in with some gypsies and I heard his speech 
of Egypt, which sounded wondrously like a medley of 
broken Spanish and dog Latin. Borrow's face lighted by 
the red turf fire of the tent was worth looking at. He is 
ashy -white now — but twenty years ago, when his hair was 
like a raven's wing, he must have been hard to dis- 
criminate from a born Bohemian. Borrow is best on the 
tramp: if you can walk 4J m il es P er hour, as I can with 
ease and do by choice, and can walk 15 of them at a 
stretch — which I can compass also — then he will talk 
Iliads of adventures even better than his printed ones. 
He cannot abide those Amateur Pedestrians who saunter, 
and in his chair he is given to groan and be contradictory. 
But on Newmarket-heath, in Rougham Woods he is at 
home, and specially when he meets with a thorough 
vagabond like your present correspondent." x 

The present Mr John Murray recollects Borrow very 
clearly as 

" tall, broad, muscular, with very heavy shoulders " and 
of course the white hair. " He was," continues Mr 
Murray, " a figure which no one who has seen it is likely 
to forget. I never remember to have seen him dressed in 
anything but black broad cloth, and white cotton socks 
were generally distinctly visible above his low shoes. I 
think that with Borrow the desire to attract attention to 
himself, to inspire a feeling of awe and mystery, must 
have been a ruling passion." 

Borrow was frequently the guest of his publisher at 
Albemarle Street, in times well within the memory of Mr 
Murray, who relates how on one occasion 

" Borrow was at a dinner-party in company with Whewell 2 
[who by the way it has been said was the original of the 

1 William Bodham Donne and His Friends. By Catherine B. 
Johnson. 

2 William Whewell (1794- 1866), Master of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, 1841-66 ; Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, 

2 B 



386 THE OLD RESTLESSNESS [1848 

Flaming Tinman, although there is very little to support the 
statement except the fact that Dr Whewell was a proper 
man with his hands] — both of them powerful men, and both 
of them, if report be true, having more than a superficial 
knowledge of the art of self-defence. A controversy- 
began, and waxed so warm that Mrs Whewell, believing a 
personal encounter to be imminent, fainted, and had to be 
carried out of the room. Once when Borrow was dining 
with my father he disappeared into a small back room 
after dinner, and could not be found. At last he was 
discovered by a lady member of the family, stretched on 
a sofa and groaning. On being spoken to and asked to 
join the other guests, he suddenly said : " Go away ! go 
away ! I am not fit company for respectable people." 
There was no apparent cause for this strange conduct, 
unless it were due to one of those unaccountable fits to 
which men of genius (and this description will be allowed 
him by many) are often subject. 

" On another occasion, when dining with my father at 
Wimbledon, he was regaled with a 'haggis,' a dish which 
was new to him, and of which he partook to an extent 
which would have astonished many a hardy Scotsman. 
One summer's day, several years later, he again came to 
dinner, and having come on foot, entered the house by a 
garden door, his first words — without any previous greet- 
ings — were : ' Is there a haggis to-day ? ' " l 

1843-56; secured in 1847 the election of the Prince Consort as 
Chancellor ; enlarged the buildings of Trinity College and founded 
professorship and scholarships for international law. Published and 
edited many works on natural and mathematical science, philosophy, 
theology and sermons. 

1 Mr John Murray in Good Words. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

LAVENGRO — 1 843— 1 85 I 

Tp\URING all these years Lavengro had been making 
*-^ progress towards completion, irregular and spas- 
modic it would appear ; but still each year brought it 
nearer to the printer. " I cannot get out of my old habits," 
Borrow wrote to Dawson Turner (15th January 1844), " I 
find I am writing the work ... in precisely the same 
manner as The Bible in Spain, viz., on blank sheets of old 
account books, backs of letters, etc. In slovenliness of 
manuscript I almost rival Mahomet, who, it is said, wrote 
his Cora,7i on mutton spade bones." " His [Borrow's] bio- 
graphy will be passing strange if he tells the whole truth," 
Ford writes to a friend (27th February 1 843). " He is 
now writing it by my advice." " I go on . . , scribbling 
away, though with a palpitating heart," Borrow informs 
John Murray (5th February 1844), "and have already 
plenty of scenes and dialogues connected with my life, 
quite equal to anything in The Bible in Spain. The great 
difficulty, however, is to blend them all into a symmetrical 
whole." On 17th September 1846 he writes again to his 
publisher : 

" I have of late been very lazy, and am become more 
addicted to sleep than usual, am seriously afraid of 
apoplexy. To rouse myself, I rode a little time ago to 
Newmarket. I felt all the better for it for a few days. I 
have at present a first rate trotting horse who affords me 
plenty of exercise. On my return from Newmarket, I 
rode him nineteen miles before breakfast." 

387 



388 THE STORY OF LAVENGRO [1849 

Another cause of delay was the " shadows " that were 
constantly descending upon him. His determination to 
give only the best of which he was capable, is almost 
tragic in the light of later events. To his wife, he wrote 
from London (February 1847): "Saw M[urray] who is in 
a hurry for me to begin [the printing]. I will not be 
hurried though for anyone." 

In the Quarterly Review, July 1848, under the heading 
of Mr Murray's List of New Works in Preparation, there 
appeared the first announcement of " Lavengro, an Auto- 
biography, by George Borrow, Author of The Bible in 
Spain, etc., 4 vols, post 8vo." This was repeated in 
October. During the next two months the book was 
advertised as Life ; A Drama, in The Athenceum and The 
Quarterly Review, and the first title-page (1849) was s0 
printed. On 7th October John Murray wrote asking 
Borrow to send the manuscript to the printer. This was 
accordingly done, and about two-thirds of it composed. 
Then Borrow appears to have fallen ill. On 5th January 
1849 John Murray wrote to Mrs Borrow: 

" I trust Mr Borrow is now restored to health and 
tranquillity of mind, and that he will soon be able to 
resume his pen. I desire this on his own account and for 
the sake of poor Woodfall [the printer], who is of course 
inconvenienced by having his press arrested after the 
commencement of the printing." 

Writing on 27th November 1849, John Murray refers 
to the work having been " first sent to press — now nearly 
eighteen months." This is clearly a mistake, as on 7th 
October 1848, thirteen and a half months previously, he 
asks Borrow to send the manuscript to the printer that he 
may begin the composition. John Murray was getting 
anxious and urges Borrow to complete the work, which a 
year ago had been offered to the booksellers at the annual 
trade-dinner. 

" I know that you are fastidious, and that you desire 
to produce a work of distinguished excellence. I see the 



xxiv.] "I MUST THROW IT UP" 389 

result of this labour in the sheets as they come from the 
press, and I think when it does appear it will make 
a sensation," wrote the tactful publisher. " Think not, 
my dear friend," replied Borrow, "that I am idle. I am 
finishing up the concluding part. I should be sorry to 
hurry the work towards the last. I dare say it will be 
ready by the middle of February." The correspondence 
grew more and more tense. Mrs Borrow wrote to the 
printer urging him to send to her husband, who has been 
overworked to the point of complaint, " one of your kind 
encouraging notes." Later Borrow went to Yarmouth, 
where sea-bathing produced a good effect upon his health ; 
but still the manuscript was not sent to the despairing 
printer. " I do not, God knows ! wish you to overtask 
yourself," wrote the unhappy Woodfall ; " but after what 
you last said, I thought I might fully calculate on your 
taking up, without further delay, the fragmentary portions 
of your 1st and 2nd volumes and let us get them out of 
hand." 

Letters continued to pass to and fro, but the balance of 
manuscript was not forthcoming until November 1850, 
when Mrs Borrow herself took it to London. Another 
trade-dinner was at hand, and John Murray had written 
to Mrs Borrow, " If I cannot show the book then — I must 
throw it up." To Mrs Borrow this meant tragedy. The 
poor woman was distracted, and from time to time she 
begs for encouraging letters. In response to one of these 
appeals, John Murray wrote with rare insight into 
Borrow's character, and knowledge of what is most likely 
to please him : " There are passages in your book equal 
to De Foe." 

The preface when eventually submitted to John 
Murray disturbed him somewhat. " It is quaint," he 
writes to Mrs Borrow, " but so is everything that Mr 
Borrow writes." He goes on to suggest that the latter 
portion looks too much as if it had been got up in the 
interests of " Papal aggression," and he calls attention to 



390 THE STORY OF LAVENGRO [1851 

the oft-repeated " Damnation cry." There appears to have 
been some modification, a few "Damnation Cries" 
omitted, the last sheet passed for press, and on 7th 
February 1 85 1 Lavengro was published in an edition of 
three thousand copies, which lasted for twenty-one years. 

The appearance of Lavengro was indeed sensational : 
but not quite in the way its publisher had anticipated. 
Almost without exception the verdict was unfavourable. 
The book was attacked vigorously. The keynote of the 
critics was disappointment. Some reviews were purely 
critical, others personal and abusive, but nearly all were 
disapproving. " Great is our disappointment " said the 
AtkencBum. "We are disappointed," echoed Blackwood. 
Among the few friendly notices was that of Dr Hake, in 
which he prophesied that " Lavengro 's roots will strike 
deep into the soil of English letters." Even Ford wrote 
(8th March) : 

" I frankly own that I am somewhat disappointed with 
the very little you have told us about yourself. I was in 
hopes to have a full, true, and particular account of your 
marvellously varied and interesting biography. I do 
hope that some day you will give it to us." 

In this chorus of dispraise Borrow saw a conspiracy. 
"If ever a book experienced infamous and undeserved 
treatment," he wrote, 1 " it was that book. I was attacked 
in every form that envy and malice could suggest." In 
The Romany Rye he has done full justice to the 
subject, exhibiting the critics " with blood and foam 
streaming from their jaws." In the original draft of the 
Advertisement to the same work he expresses himself as 
"proud of a book which has had the honour of being 
rancorously abused and execrated by every unmanly 
scoundrel, every sycophantic lacquey, and every political 
and religious renegade in Britain." A few years previously, 
Borrow had written to John Murray, " I have always 

1 To John Murray ; the letter is in Mrs Borrow's hand but drafted 
by Borrow himself, 29th Jan. 1855. 



xxiv.] WHY BORROW CHANGED HIS MIND 391 

found that the way to please the public is to please 
myself. If you wish to please the public leave the 
matter [the revision of The Zincali] to me." 1 From this 
it is evident that Borrow was unprepared for anything 
but commendation from critics and readers. 

Dr Bowring had some time previously requested the 
editor of The Edinburgh Review to allow him to review 
Lavengro ; but no notice ever appeared. In all probability 
he realised the impossibility of writing about a book in 
which he and his family appeared in such an unpleasant 
light. It is unlikely that he asked for the book in order to 
prevent a review appearing in The Edinburgh, as has been 
suggested. 

In the Preface, Lavengro is described as " a dream " ; 
yet there can be not a vestage of doubt that Borrow's 
original intention had been to acknowledge it as an 
autobiography. " This work is a kind of biography in the 
Robinson Crusoe style," he had written in 1844. This he 
contradicted in the Appendix to The Romany Rye ; yet in 
his manuscript autobiography 2 (13th Oct. 1862) he says: 
" In 185 1 he published Lavengro, a work in which he gives 
an account of his early life." Why had Borrow changed 
his mind ? 

When Lavengro was begun, as a result of Ford's 
persistent appeals, Borrow was on the crest of the wave of 
success. He saw himself the literary hero of the hour. 
The Bible in Spain was selling in its thousands. The 
press had proclaimed it a masterpiece. He had seen 
himself a great man. The writer of a great book, however, 
does not occupy a position so kinglike in its loneliness as 
does a gentleman gypsy, round whom flock the gitanos to 
kiss his hand and garments as if he were a god or a hero. 
The literary and social worlds that The Bible in Spain 
opened to Borrow were not to be awed by his mystery, or 
disciplined into abject hero-worship by one of those steady 
penetrating gazes, which cowed jockeys and alguacils. They 
1 16th April 1845. 2 See post. 



392 THE STORY OF LAVENGRO [1851 

claimed intellectual kinship and equality, the very things 
that Borrow had no intention of conceding them. He 
would have tolerated their " gentility nonsense " if they 
would have acknowledged his paramountcy. He found 
that to be a social or a literary lion was to be a tame lion, 
and he was too big for that. His conception of genius 
was that it had its moods, and mediocrity must suffer 
them. 

Borrow would rush precipitately from the house where 
he was a guest ; he would be unpardonably rude to some 
inoffensive and well-meaning woman who thought to 
please him by admiring his books ; he would magnify a 
fight between their respective dogs into a deadly feud 
between himself and the rector of his parish : thus he 
made enemies by the dozen and, incidentally, earned for 
himself an extremely unenviable reputation. A hero with 
a lovable nature is twice a hero, because he is possessed of 
those qualities that commend themselves to the greater 
number. Wellington could never be a serious rival in a 
nation's heart to dear, weak, sensitive, noble Nelson, who 
lived for praise and frankly owned to it. 

Borrow's lovable qualities were never permitted to 
show themselves in public, they were kept for the dingle, 
the fireside, or the inn-parlour. That he had a sweeter 
side to his nature there can be no doubt, and those who 
saw it were his wife, his step-daughter, and his friends, in 
particular those who, like Mr Watts-Dunton and Mr A. 
Egmont Hake, have striven for years to emphasise the 
more attractive part of his strange nature. 

Borrow's attitude towards literature in itself was not 
calculated to gain friends for him. He was uncompromis- 
ingly and caustically severe upon some of the literary idols 
of his day, men who have survived that terrible handicap, 
contemporary recognition and appreciation. 

He was not a deep reader, hardly a reader at all in the 
accepted meaning of the word. He frankly confessed that 
books were to him of secondary importance to man as a 



xxiv.] THE GREATNESS OF SCOTT 393 

subject for study. In his criticisms of literature, he was 
apt to confuse the man with his works. His hatred of 
Scott is notorious ; it was not the artist he so cordially 
disliked, but the politician ; he admitted that Scott "wrote 
splendid novels about the Stuarts." 1 He hailed him as 
" greater than Homer " ; 2 but the House of Stuart he held 
in utter detestation, and when writing or speaking of 
Scott he forgot to make a rather necessary distinction. 
He wrote : 

" He admires his talents both as a prose writer 
and a poet ; as a poet especially. 3 ... As a prose writer 
he admires him less, it is true, but his admiration for him 
in that capacity is very high, and he only laments that he 
prostituted his talents to the cause of the Stuarts and 
gentility ... in conclusion, he will say, in order to show 
the opinion which he entertains of the power of Scott as 
a writer, that he did for the spectre of the wretched 
Pretender what all the kings of Europe could not do 
for his body — placed it on the throne of these realms." i 

In later years Borrow paid a graceful tribute to Scott's 
memory. When at Kelso, in spite of the rain and mist, he 
" trudged away to Dryburgh to pay my respects to the 
tomb of Walter Scott, a man with whose principles I have 
no sympathy, but for whose genius I have always 
entertained the most intense admiration." 5 It was just 
the same with Byron, " for whose writings I really 
entertained considerable admiration, though I had no 
particular esteem for the man himself." 6 

With Wordsworth it was different, and it was his 
cordial dislike of his poetry that prompted Borrow to 

1 The Romany Rye, page 338. 

2 Life of Frances Power Cable, by herself. 

3 Borrow goes on to an anti-climax when he states that he 
"believes him [Scott] to have been by far the greatest [poet], with 
perhaps the exception of Mickiewicz, who only wrote for unfortunate 
Poland, that Europe has given birth to during the last hundred years." 

4 The Romany Rye, pages 344-5. 

5 Romano Lavo-Lil, page 274. 6 The Romany Rye, page 134. 



394 THE STORY OF LAVENGRO [1851 

introduce into The Romany Rye that ineffectual episode of 
the man who was sent to sleep by reading him. Tennyson 
he dismissed as a writer of " duncie books." 

For Dickens he had an enthusiastic admiration as " a 
second Fielding, a young writer who . . . has evinced 
such talent, such humour, variety and profound knowledge 
of character, that he charms his readers, at least those 
who have the capacity to comprehend him." 1 He was 
delighted with The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist. 

His reading was anything but thorough, in fact he 
occasionally showed a remarkable ignorance of contem- 
porary writers. Mr A. Egmont Hake tells how : 

" His conversation would sometimes turn on modern 
literature, with which his acquaintance was very slight. 
He seemed to avoid reading the products of modern 
thought lest his own strong opinions should undergo 
dilution. We were once talking of Keats whose fame 
had been constantly increasing, but of whose poetry 
Borrow's knowledge was of a shadowy kind, when 
suddenly he put a stop to the conversation by ludicrously 
asking, in his strong voice, ' Have they not been trying to 
resuscitate him ? ' " 2 

By the time that Lavengro appeared, Borrow was 
estranged from his generation. The years that intervened 
between the success of The Bible in Spain and the 
publication of Lavengro had been spent by him in 
war ; he had come to hate his contemporaries with a 
wholesome, vigorous hatred. He would give them his 
book ; but they should have it as a stray cur has a bone — 
thrown at them. Above all, they should not for a moment 
be allowed to think that it contained an intimate account 
of the life of the supreme hater who had written it. When 
there had been sympathy between them, Borrow was pre- 
pared to allow his public to peer into the sacred recesses 
of his early life. Now that there was none, he denied that 

1 Letter from Borrow to Dr Usoz, 22nd Feb. 1839. 

2 Macmzl/an's Magazine, vol. 45. 



xxiv.] DISCOURAGED 395 

Lavengro was more than " a dream," forgetting that he 
had so often written of it as an autobiography had even 
seen it advertised as such, and insisted that it was fiction. 

When Lavengro was published Borrow was an unhappy 
and disappointed man. He had found what many other 
travellers have found when they come home, that in the 
wilds he had left his taste and toleration for conventional 
life and ideas. The life in the Peninsula had been 
thoroughly congenial to a man of Borrow's temperament : 
hardships, dangers, imprisonments, — they were his 
common food. He who had defied the whole power of 
Spain, found himself powerless to prevent his Rector from 
keeping a dog, or a railway line from being cut through 
his own estate and his peace of mind disturbed by the 
rumble of trains and the shriek of locomotive-whistles. 
He had beaten the Flaming Tinman and Count Ofalia, 
but Samuel Morton Peto had vanquished and put him to 
flight by virtue of an Act of Parliament, in all probability 
without being conscious of having achieved a signal 
victory. Borrow's life had been built up upon a wrong 
hypothesis : he strove to adapt, not himself to the 
Universe ; but the Universe to himself. 

It is easy to see that a man with this attitude of mind 
would regard as sheer vindictiveness the adverse criticism 
of a book that he had written with such care, and so 
earnest an endeavour to maintain if not improve upon 
the standard created in a former work. It never for a 
moment struck him that the men who had once hailed him 
" great," should now admonish him as a result of the 
honest exercise of their critical faculties. No ; there was 
a conspiracy against him, and he tortured himself into a 
pitiable state of wrath and melancholy. A later genera- 
tion has been less harsh in its judgment. The controversial 
parts of Lavengro have become less controversial and the 
magnificent parts have become more magnificent, and it 
has taken its place as a star of the second magnitude. 

The question of what is actual autobiography and what 



396 THE STORY OF LA VENGRO [1851 

is so coloured as to become practically fiction, must always 
be a matter of opinion. The early portion seems con- 
vincing, even the first meeting with the gypsies in the 
lane at Norman Cross. It has been asked by an eminent 
gypsy scholar how Borrow knew the meaning of the word 
" sap," or why he addressed the gypsy woman as " my 
mother." When the Gypsy refers to the " Sap there," the 
child replies, " what, the snake ? " The employment of the 
other phrase is obviously an inadvertent use of knowledge 
he gained later. 

In writing to Mrs George Borrow (24th March 185 1) 
to tell her that W. B. Donne had been unable to obtain 
Lavengro for The Edinburgh Review as it had been 
bespoken a year previously by Dr Bowring, Dr Hake adds 
that Donne had written " putting the editor in possession 
of his view of Lavengro, as regards verisimilitude, vouching 
for the Daguerreotype-like fidelity of the picture in the 
first volume, etc., etc., in order to prevent him from being 
taken in by a spiteful article." This passage is very 
significant as being written by one of Borrow's most 
intimate friends, with the sure knowledge that its contents 
would reach him. It leaves no room for doubt that, 
although Borrow denied publicly the autobiographical 
nature of Lavengro, in his own circle it was freely admitted 
and referred to as a life. 

"What is an autobiography?" Borrow once asked 
Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton (who had called his attention 
to "several bold coincidences in Lavengro"). "Is it the 
mere record of the incidents of a man's life? or is it a 
picture of the man himself — his character, his soul ? " x 
Mr Watts-Dunton confirms Borrow's letters when he says 
" That he [Borrow] sat down to write his own life in 
Lavengro I know. He had no idea then of departing from 
the strict line of fact." 

At times Borrow seemed to find his pictures flat, and 

1 " Notes upon George Borrow " prefaced to an edition of Lavengro. 
Ward, Lock & Co. 



xxiv.] SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY 397 

heightened the colour in places, as a painter might 
heighten the tone of a drapery, a roof or some other object, 
not because the individual spot required it, but rather 
because the general effect he was aiming at rendered it 
necessary. He did this just as an actor rouges his face, 
darkens his eyebrows and round his eyes, that he may 
appear to his audience a living man and not an animated 
corpse. 

Borrow was drawing himself, striving to be as faithful 
to the original as Boswell to Johnson. Incidents ! what 
were they ? the straw with which the bricks of personality 
are made. A comparison of Lavengro with Borrow's 
letters to the Bible Society is instructive ; it is the same 
Borrow that appears in both, with the sole difference that 
in the Letters he is less mysterious, less in the limelight 
than in Lavengro. 

Mr Watts-Dunton, with inspiration, has asked " whether 
or not Lavengro and The Romany Rye form a spiritual 
autobiography ; and if they do, whether that autobiography 
does or does not surpass every other for absolute truth of 
spiritual representation." Borrow certainly did colour his 
narrative in places. Who could write the story of his early 
life with absolute accuracy? without dwelling on and 
elaborating certain episodes, perhaps even adjusting them 
somewhat ? That would not necessarily prove them 
untrue. 

There are, unquestionably, inconsistencies in Lavengro 
and The Romany Rye — they are admitted, they have been 
pointed out. There are many inaccuracies, it must be 
confessed ; but because a man makes a mistake in the 
date of his birth or even the year, it does not prove that 
he was not born at all. Borrow was for ever making the 
most inaccurate statements about his age. 

In the main Lavengro would appear to be auto- 
biographical up to the period of Borrow's coming to 
London. After this he begins to indulge somewhat in 
the dramatic. The meeting with the pickpocket as a 



398 THE STORY OF LA VENGRO [1851 

thimble-rigger at Greenwich might pass muster were it 
not for the rencontre with the apple -woman's son near 
Salisbury. The Dingle episode may be accepted, for 
Mr John Sampson has verified even the famous thunder- 
storm by means of the local press. Isopel Berners is not 
so easy to settle ; yet the picture of her is so convincing, 
and Borrow was unable to do more than colour his 
narrative, that she too must have existed. 

The failure of Lavengro is easily accounted for. 
Borrow wrote of vagabonds and vagabondage ; it did not 
mitigate his offence in the eyes of the critics or the public 
that he wrote well about them. His crime lay in his 
subject. To Borrow, a man must be ready and able to 
knock another man down if necessity arise. When 
nearing sixty he lamented his childless state and said 
very mournfully : " I shall soon not be able to knock a 
man down, and I have no son to do it for me." 1 He 
glorified "the bruisers of England," in the face of horrified 
public opinion. England had become ashamed of its 
bruisers long before Lavengro was written, and this 
flaunting in its face of creatures that it considered too low 
to be mentioned, gave mortal offence. That in Lavengro 
was the best descriptions of a fight in the language, only 
made the matter worse. Borrow's was an age of gentility 
and refinement, and he outraged it, first by glorifying 
vagabondage, secondly by decrying and sneering at 
gentility. 

" Qui n' a pas l'esprit de son age, 
De son age a tout le malheur." 

And Borrow proved Voltaire's words. 

It is not difficult to understand that an age in which 
prize-fighting is anathema should not tolerate a book 
glorifying the ring ; but it is strange that Borrow's simple 
paganism and nature-worship should not have aroused 
sympathetic recognition. Poetry is ageless, and such 

1 Mr W. Elvin in the Athenceum, 6th Aug. 1881. 



xxiv.] A PUZZLING BOOK 399 

passages as the description of the sunrise over Stonehenge 
should have found some, at least, to welcome them, even 
when found in juxtaposition with bruisers and gypsies. 

Borrow loved to mystify, but in Lavengro he had 
overreached himself. " Are you really in existence ? " 
wrote one correspondent who was unknown to Borrow, 
" for I also have occasionally doubted whether things 
exist, as you describe your own feelings in former days." 

John Murray wrote (8th Nov. 185 1) : — 

" I was reminded of you the other day by an enquiry 
after Lavengro and its author, made by the Right Honour- 
able John Wilson Croker. 1 Knowing how fastidious and 
severe a critic he is, I was particularly glad to find him 
expressing a favourable opinion of it ; and thinking well 
of it his curiosity was piqued about you. Like all the 
rest of the world, he is mystified by it. He knew not 
whether to regard it as truth or fiction. How can you 
remedy this defect ? I call it a defect, because it really 
impedes your popularity. People say of a chapter or of a 
character: 'This is very wonderful, if true ; but if fiction 
it is pointless.' — Will your new volumes explain this and 
dissolve the mystery? If so, pray make haste and get on 
with them. I hope you have employed the summer in 
giving them the finishing touches." 

" There are," says a distinguished critic, 2 " passages in 
Lavengro which are unsurpassed in the prose literature of 
England — unsurpassed, I mean, for mere perfection of 
style — for blending of strength and graphic power with 
limpidity and music of flow." Borrow's own generation 
would have laughed at such a value being put upon 
anything in Lavengro. 

Another thing against the book's success was its style. 

1 John Wilson Croker (1780-1857) : Politician and Essayist ; 
friend of Canning and Peel. At one time Temporary Chief Secretary 
for Ireland and later Secretary of the Admiralty. Supposed to have 
been the original of Rigby in Disraeli's Coningsby. 

2 Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton, "Notes upon George Borrow" 
prefaced to an edition of Lavengro. Ward, Lock & Co. 



400 THE STORY OF LA VENGRO [1851 

It lacked what has been described as " the poetic ecstacy 
or sentimental verdure " of the age. Trope, imagery, 
mawkishness, were all absent, for Borrow had gone back 
to his masters, at whose head stood the glorious Defoe. 
Borrow's style was as individual as the man himself. By 
a curious contradiction, the tendency is to overlook 
literary lapses in the very man towards whom so little 
latitude was allowed in other directions. Many Borrovians 
have groaned in anguish over his misuse of that wretched 
word " Individual." A distinguished man of letters 1 has 
written : — " I would as lief read a chapter of The Bible in 
Spain as I would Gil Bias ; nay, I positively would give 
the preference to Sefior Giorgio." Another critic, and a 
severe one, has written : — 

" It is not as philologist, or traveller, or ' wild missionary, 
or folk-lorist, or antiquary, that Borrow lives and will live. 
It is as the master of splendid, strong, simple English, the 
prose Morland of a vanished road-side life, the realist who, 
Defoe-like, could make fiction seem truer than fact. To 
have written the finest fight in the whole world's literature, 
the fight with the Flaming Tinman, is surely something 
of an achievement." 2 

It is Borrow's personality that looms out from his 
pages. His mastery over the imagination of his reader, 
his subtle instinct of how to throw his own magnetism 
over everything he relates, although he may be standing- 
aside as regards the actual events with which he is dealing, 
is worthy of Defoe himself. It is this magnetism that 
carries his readers safely over the difficult places, where, 
but for the author's grip upon them, they would give up in 
despair ; it is this magnetism that prompts them to pass 
by only with a slight shudder, such references as " the 
feathered tribe," " fast in the arms of Morpheus," and, 
above all, those terrible puns that crop up from time to 

1 The Rt. Hon. Augustine Birrell in Obiter Dicta, 2nd Series, 
1887. 

2 Francis Hindes Groome in Bookman, May 1899. 



xxiv.] TRUTH V. FICTION 401 

time. There is always the strong, masterful man behind 
the words who, like a great general, can turn a reverse 
to his own advantage. 

In his style perhaps, after all, lay the secret of Borrow's 
unsuccess. He was writing for another generation ; 
speaking in a voice too strong to be heard other than as a 
strange noise by those near to him. It may be urged 
that The Bible in Spain disproves these conclusions ; but 
The Bible in Spain was a peculiar book. It was a 
chronicle of Christian enterprise served up with sauce 
picaresque. It pleased and astonished everyone, especi- 
ally those who had grown a little weary of godly 
missioners. It had the advantage of being spontaneous, 
having been largely written on the spot, whereas Lavengro 
and The Romany Rye were worked on and laboured at for 
years. Above all, it had the inestimable virtue of being 
known to be True. To the imaginative intellectual, 
Truth or Fiction are matters of small importance, he 
judges by Art ; but to the general public of limited 
intellectual capacity, Truth is appreciated out of all pro- 
portion to its artistic importance. If Borrow had published 
The Bible in Spain after the failure of Lavengro, it would 
in all probability have been as successful as it was 
appearing before. 



2 C 



CHAPTER XXV 

SEPTEMBER 1 849 — FEBRUARY 1 854 

/^\NE of the finest traits in Borrow's character was his 
^-^ devotion to his mother. He was always thoughtful 
for her comfort, even when fighting that almost hopeless 
battle in Russia, and later in the midst of bandits and 
bloody patriots in Spain. She was now, in 1849, an old 
woman, too feeble to live alone, and it was decided to 
transfer her to Oulton. An addition to the Hall was con- 
structed for her accommodation, and she was to be given 
an attendant-companion in the person of the daughter of 
a local farmer. 

For thirty-three years she had lived in the little house 
in Willow Lane ; yet it was not she, but Borrow, who 
felt the parting from old associations. " I wish," she 
writes to her daughter-in-law on 16th September 1849, 
" my dear George would not have such fancies about the 
old house ; it is a mercy it has not fallen on my head before 
this." The old lady was anxious to get away. It would 
not be safe, she thought, for her to be shut up alone, as the 
old woman who had looked after her could, for some reason 
or other, do so no longer. She urges her daughter-in-law 
to represent this to Borrow. 

" There is a low, noisy set close to me," she continues. 
" I shall not die one day sooner, or live one day longer. 
If I stop here and die on a sudden, half the things might 
be lost or stolen, therefore it seems as if the Lord would 
provide me a safer home. I have made up my mind to 

402 



xxv.] REMOVAL TO GREAT YARMOUTH 403 

the change and only pray that I may be able to get 
through the trouble." 

It would appear that the move, which took place at 
the end of September, was brought about by the old lady's 
appeals and insistence, and that Borrow himself was not 
anxious for it. He felt a sentimental attachment to the 
old place, which for so many years had been a home 
to him. 

In 1853 Borrow removed to Great Yarmouth. During 
the summer of that year, Dr Hake had peremptorily 
ordered Mrs George Borrow not to spend the ensuing 
winter and spring at Oulton, and the move was made in 
August. The change was found to be beneficial to Mrs 
Borrow and agreeable to all, and for the next seven years 
(Aug. 1853 -June i860) Borrow's headquarters were to 
be at Great Yarmouth, where he and his family occupied 
various lodgings. 

Shortly before leaving Oulton, Borrow had received 
the following interesting letter from FitzGerald : — 

Boulge, Woodbridge, 22nd July 1853. 

My DEAR Sir, — I take the liberty of sending you a 
book [Six Dramas from Calderon], of which the title-page 
and advertisement will sufficiently explain the import. I 
am afraid that I shall in general be set down at once as an 
impudent fellow in making so free with a Great Man ; 
but, as usual, I shall feel least fear before a man like 
yourself, who both do fine things in your own language 
and are deep read in those of others. I mean, that 
whether you like or not what I send you, you will do so 
from knowledge and in the candour which knowledge 
brings. 

I had even a mind to ask you to look at these plays 
before they were printed, relying on our common friend 
Donne for a mediator ; but I know how wearisome all MS. 
inspection is ; and, after all, the whole affair was not worth 
giving you such a trouble. You must pardon all this, and 
believe me, — Yours very faithfully, 

Edward FitzGerald. 



404 THE VISIT TO CORNWALL [1852 

Soon after his arrival by the sea, Borrow performed an 
act of bravery of which The Bury Post (17th Sept. 1852) 
gave the following account, most likely written by Dr 
Hake : — 

" Intrepidity. — Yarmouth jetty presented an extra- 
ordinary and thrilling spectacle on Thursday, the 8th inst, 
about one o'clock. The sea raged frantically, and a ship's 
boat, endeavouring to land for water, was upset, and the 
men were engulfed in a wave some thirty feet high, and 
struggling with it in vain. The moment was an awful one, 
when George Borrow, the well-known author of Lavengro, 
and The Bible in Spain, dashed into the surf and saved one 
life, and through his instrumentality the others were 
saved. We ourselves have known this brave and gifted 
man for years, and, daring as was this deed we have known 
him more than once to risk his life for others. We are 
happy to add that he has sustained no material injury." 

Borrow was a splendid swimmer. 1 In the course of one 
of his country walks with Robert Cooke (John Murray's 
partner), with whom he was on very friendly terms, 

" he suggested a bathe in the river along which they 
were walking. Mr Cooke told me that Borrow, having 
stripped, took a header into the water and disappeared. 
More than a minute had elapsed, and as there were no 
signs of his whereabouts, Mr Cooke was becoming 
alarmed, lest he had struck his head or been entangled in 
the weeds, when Borrow suddenly reappeared a consider- 
able distance off, under the opposite bank of the stream, 
and called out ' What do you think of that ? '" 2 

Elizabeth Harvey, in telling the same story, says that 
on coming up he exclaimed : " There, if that had been 
written in one of my books, they would have said it was a 
lie, wouldn't they?" 3 

The paragraph about Borrow's courage was printed in 
various newspapers throughout the country, amongst 

1 " Swimming is a noble exercise, but it certainly does not tend to 
mortify either the flesh or the spirit." — The Bible in Spain, page 688. 

2 Mr John Murray in Good Words. 

8 In The Eastern Daily Press, 1st October 1892. 



xxv.] BORROW AND HIS CORNISH KINSMEN 405 

others in the Plymouth Mail under the heading of 
" Gallant Conduct of Mr G. Borrow," and was read by 
Borrow's Cornish kinsmen, who for years had heard nothing 
of Thomas Borrow. Apparently quite convinced that 
George was his son, they deputed Robert Taylor, a farmer 
of Penquite Farm (who had married Anne Borrow, grand- 
daughter of Henry Borrow), to write to Borrow and invite 
him to visit Trethinnick. The letter was dated ioth 
October and directed to " George Borrow, Yarmouth." 
Borrow replied as follows : — 

Yarmouth, xqth Octr., 1853. 

My DEAR Sir, — I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt 
of your letter of the ioth inst. in which you inform me of 
the kind desire of my Cornish relatives to see me at 
Trethinnock (sic). Please to inform them that I shall be 
proud and happy to avail myself of their kindness and to 
make the acquaintance of " one and all " x of them. My 
engagements will prevent my visiting them at present, but 
I will appear amongst them on the first opportunity. I am 
delighted to learn that there are still some living at 
Trethinnock who remember my honoured father, who had 
as true a Cornish heart as ever beat. 

I am at present at Yarmouth, to which place I have 
brought my wife for the benefit of her health ; but my 
residence is Oulton Hall, Lowestoft, Suffolk. With kind 
greetings to my Cornish kindred, in which my wife and my 
mother join, — I remain, my dear Sir, ever sincerely yours, — 

George Borrow. 

Borrow was not free to visit his kinsfolk until the 
following Christmas. First advising Robert Taylor of his 
intention, and receiving his approval and instructions for 
the journey, Borrow set out from Great Yarmouth on 23rd 
December. He spent the night at Plymouth. Next 
morning on finding the Liskeard coach full, he decided to 
walk. Leaving his carpet-bag to be sent on by the mail, 
and' throwing over his arm the cloak that had seen many 
years of service, he set out upon his eighteen-mile tramp. 
1 Borrow's reference is to the county motto, " One and All." 



406 THE VISIT TO CORNWALL [1853 

He arrived at Liskeard in the afternoon, and was met by 
his cousin Henry Borrow and Robert Taylor, as well as 
by several local celebrities. 

After tea Borrow, accompanied by Robert Taylor, 
rode to Penquite, four miles away. " Ride by night to 
Penquite," Borrow records in his Journal. " House of 
stone and slate on side of a hill. Mrs Taylor. Hospitable 
reception. Christmas Eve. Log on fire." He found 
alive of his own generation, Henry, William, Thomas, 
Elizabeth (who lived to be 94 years of age) and Nicholas, 
the children of Henry Borrow, Captain Borrow's eldest 
brother. Also Anne, daughter of Henry, who married 
Robert Taylor, and their daughter, likewise named Anne, 
and William Henry, son of Nicholas. 

In the Cornish " Note Books " there appears under the 
date of 3rd January the following entry : " Rain and 
snow. Rode with Mr Taylor to dine at Trethinnick. 
House dilapidated. A family party. Hospitable people." 
On first entering his father's old home tears had sprung 
to Borrow's eyes, and he was much affected. There was 
present at the dinner the vicar of St Cleer, the Rev. J. R. P. 
Berkeley, " a pleasant Irish clergyman" who, years later, 
was able to give to Dr Knapp an account of what took 
place. He noticed the " vast difference in appearance and 
manners between the simple yet shrewd Cornish farmers 
and the betravelled gentleman their kinsman " ; yet for 
all this there were shades of resemblance — in a look, some 
turn of thought or tone of voice. " George Borrow was 
not at his best that evening," Mr Berkeley relates of the 
dinner at Trethinnick : 

" his feelings were too much excited. He was think- 
ing of the time when his father's footsteps and his father's 
voice re-echoed in the room in which we were sitting. His 
eyes wandered from point to point, and at times, if I was 
not mistaken, a tear could be seen trembling in them. At 
length he could no longer control his feelings. He left 
the hall suddenly, and in a few moments, but for God's 



xxv.] BORROW IN CORNWALL 407 

providential care, the career of George Borrow would have 
been ended. There was within a few feet of the house a 
low wall with a drop of some feet into a paved yard. He 
walked rapidly out, and, it being nearly dark, he stepped 
one side of the gate and fell over the wall. He did not 
mention the accident, although he bruised himself a good 
deal, and it was some days before I heard of it. His 
words to me that evening, when bidding me good-bye, 
were : ' Well, we have shared the old-fashioned hospitality 
of old-fashioned people in an old-fashioned house.'" 1 

Borrow created something of a sensation in the neigh- 
bourhood. As a celebrity his autograph was much sought 
after ; but he would gratify nobody. His hosts experienced 
many little surprises from their guest's strange ways. He 
would plunge into a moorland pool to fetch a bird that 
had fallen to his gun, or, round the family fireside, he would 
shout his ballads of the North, at one time alarming his 
audience by seizing a carving-knife and brandishing it 
about in the air to emphasize the passionate nature of his 
song. When a card-party proved too dull he slipped off 
and found his way into some slums, " picking up all the 
disreputable characters he could find, working off his 
knowledge of 'cant' on them, and getting out of them 
what he could." 2 

On one occasion when dining at the house of a local 
celebrity he was suddenly missed from table during 
dessert. 

" A search revealed him in a remote room surrounded 
by the children of the house, whom he was amusing by 
his stories and catechising in the subject of their studies 
and pursuits. He excused his absence by saying that he 
had been fascinated by the intelligence of the children, 
and had forgotten about the dinner." 3 

His hatred of gentility led him into some actions that 
can only be characterised as childish. Even in Cornwall 

1 The Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp, ii., 79-80. 

2 George Borrow, by R. A. J. Walling. 

3 George Borrow, by R. A. J. Walling. 



408 THE VISIT TO CORNWALL [1854 

he was on the look-out for his fetish. On one occasion 
when dining with the ex-Mayor of Liskeard, he pulled 
out of his pocket and used instead of a handkerchief, a 
dirty old grease-stained rag with which he was wont to 
clean his gun. 1 This was done as a protest against 
something or other that seemed to him to suggest mock 
refinement. 

When at Wolsdon as the guest of the Pollards there 
arrived " a lady and gentleman of the name of Hambly," 
according to the Note Books. In spite of this brief 
reference, Borrow immediately recognised a hated name. 
" Never was one of the name good," he informed Mi- 
Berkeley. He may even have been informed that they 
were descendants of the Headborough whom his father had 
knocked down. He showed his detestation for the name 
by being as rude as he could to those who bore it. 

Borrow was as incapable of dissimulating his dislikes 
as he was of controlling his moods. Even during his 
short stay at Penquite he was on one occasion, at least, 
plunged into a deep melancholy, sitting before a huge fire 
entirely oblivious to the presence of others in the room. 
Mrs Berkeley, who, with the vicar himself, was a caller, 
thinking to produce some good effect upon the gloomy 
man, sat down at the piano and played some old Irish 
and Scottish airs. After a time Borrow began to listen, 
then he raised his head, and finally " he suddenly sprang 
to his feet, clapped his hands several times, danced about 
the room, and struck up some joyous melody. From that 
moment he was a different man." He told them " tales 
and side-splitting anecdotes," he joined the party at 
supper, and when the vicar and his wife rose to take their 
leave he pressed Mrs Berkeley's hands, and told her that 
her music had been as David's harp to his soul. 

To the young man he met during this visit who 
informed him that he had left the Army as it was no 
place for a gentleman, Borrow replied that it was no 

1 George Borrow, by R. A. J. Walling. 



xxv.] "OUR DISTINGUISHED VISITOR" 409 

place for a man who was not a gentleman, and that he 
was quite right in leaving it. To speak against the Army 
to Borrow was to speak against his honoured father. 

How Borrow struck his Cornish kinsfolk is shown in a 
letter written by his hostess to a friend. " I must tell 
you," she writes, " a bit about our distinguished visitor." 
She gives one of the most valuable portraits of Borrow 
that exists. He was to her : 

" A fine tall man of about six feet three, well-propor- 
tioned and not stout ; able to walk five miles an hour 
successively ; rather florid face without any hirsute 
appendages ; hair white and soft ; eyes and eyebrows 
dark ; good nose and very nice mouth ; well-shaped 
hands — altogether a person you would notice in a crowd. 
His character is not so easy to portray. The more I 
see of him the less I know of him. He is very enthusi- 
astic and eccentric, very proud and unyielding. He 
says very little of himself, and one cannot ask him if 
inclined to. . . . He is a marvel in himself. There is no 
one here to draw him out. He has an astonishing 
memory as to dates when great events have taken place, 
no matter in what part of the world. He seems to 
know everything." l 

Borrow was gratified at the welcome he received, and 
was much pleased with the neighbourhood and its people. 
" My relations are most excellent people," he wrote to 
his wife, "but I could not understand more than half they 
said." He was puzzled to know why the head of a family, 
which was reputed to be worth seventy thousand pounds, 
should live in a house which could not boast of a single 
grate — " nothing but open chimneys." 

He remained at Penquite for upwards of a fortnight, 
at one time galloping over snowy hills and dales with 
Anne Taylor, Junr., " as gallant a girl as ever rode," at 
another, alert as ever for fragments of folk-lore or 
philology, jotting down the story of a pisky-child from the 
dictation of his cousin Elizabeth. 

1 The Life of George Borrozv, by Dr Knapp. 



410 THE VISIT TO CORNWALL [1854 

On 9th January Borrow left Penquite on a tour to 
Truro, Penzance, Mousehole, and Land's End, armed 
with the inevitable umbrella, grasped in the centre by the 
right hand, " green, manifold and bulging," that so puzzled 
Mr Watts-Dunton and caused him on one occasion to ask 
Dr Hake, " Is he a genuine Child of the Open Air ? " It 
was one of the first things to which Borrow's pedestrian 
friends had to accustom themselves. With this " damning 
thing . . . gigantic and green," Borrow set out upon his 
excursion, now examining some Celtic barrow, now enquir- 
ing his way or the name of a landmark, occasionally 
singing in that tremendous voice of his, " Look out, look 
out, Swayne Vonved ! " 

At Mousehole he called upon a relative, H. D. Burney 
(who was, it would seem, in charge of the Coast Guard 
Station), to whom he had a letter of introduction from 
Robert Taylor. Mr Burney entertained him with stories, 
showed him places and things of interest in the neigh- 
bourhood, and accompanied him on his visit to St 
Michael's Mount. Borrow returned to Penquite on the 
25th with a considerable store of Cornish legends and 
Cornish words, and the knowledge that "you can only see 
Cornwall or know anything about it by walking 
through it." 

The next excursion was to the North Coast, Pentire 
Point, Tintagel, King Arthur's Castle, etc. On the 1st 
of February he left Penquite, and slept the night at 
Trethinnick. The next morning he set out on horseback 
accompanied by Nicholas Borrow. 

To the vicar of St Cleer and his family, Borrow was 
a very welcome visitor. Mr Berkeley's eldest son, a boy 
of ten years of age, on being introduced to the dis- 
tinguished caller, gazed at him for some moments and 
then without a word left the room and, going straight 
to his mother in another apartment cried, " Well, mother, 
that is a man." Borrow was delighted when he heard of 
the child's enthusiasm. Mr Berkeley gives a picture of 



xxv.] THE OLD PRIZE-FIGHTER'S RECEIPT 411 

his distinguished visitor far more prepossessing than 
many that exist. He was particularly struck, as was 
everybody, by the beauty of Borrow's hands, and their 
owner's vanity over them as the legacy of his Huguenot 
ancestors. Mr Berkeley found Borrow's " countenance 
pleasing, betokening calm firmness, self-confidence and 
a mind under control, though capable of passion." He 
could on occasion prove a delightful talker, and he gave 
to the vicar's family a new maxim to implant upon their 
Christianity, the old prize-fighter's receipt for a quiet life : 
" Learn to box, and keep a civil tongue in your head." 
He would often drop in at the vicarage in the evening, 
when he would 

" sit in the centre of a group before the fire with his 
hands on his knees — his favourite position — pouring forth 
tales of the scenes he had witnessed in his wanderings. . . . 
Then he would suddenly spring from his seat and walk 
to and fro the room in silence ; anon he would clap 
his hands and sing a Gypsy song, or perchance would 
chant forth a translation of some Viking poem ; after 
which he would sit down again and chat about his father, 
whose memory he revered as he did his mother's ; l and 
finally he would recount some tale of suffering or sorrow 
with deep pathos — his voice being capable of expressing 
triumphant joy or the profoundest sadness." 

It was Borrow's intention to write a book about his 
visit to Cornwall, and he even announced it at the end of 
The Romany Rye. He was delighted with the Duchy, 
and evidently gave his relatives to understand that it 
was his intention to use the contents of his Note Books 
as the nucleus of a book. " He will undoubtedly write 
a description of his visit," Mrs Taylor wrote to her friend. 
" I walked through the whole of Cornwall and saw every- 
thing," Borrow wrote to his wife after his return to 
London. " I kept a Journal of every day I was there, and 
it fills two pocket books." 

1 This is rather awkwardly phrased, as Mrs Borrow was alive at 
that date. 



412 THE VISIT TO CORNWALL [1854 

Borrow left Cornwall the second week in February 
and was in London on the ioth, where he was to break his 
journey home in order to obtain some data at the British 
Museum for the Appendix of The Romany Rye} On 
13th February he writes to his wife : — 

" For three days I have been working hard at the 
Museum, I am at present at Mr Webster's, but not in the 
three guinea lodgings. I am in rooms above, for which 
I pay thirty shillings a week. I live as economically as 
I can ; but when I am in London I am obliged to be at 
certain expense. I must be civil to certain friends who 
invite me out and show me every kindness. Please send 
me a five pound note by return of post." 

His wife appears to have been anxious for his return 
home, and on the 17th he writes to her : — 

" It is hardly worth while making me more melancholy 
than I am. ' Come home, come home ! ' is the cry. And 
what are my prospects when I get home ? though it is 
true that they are not much brighter here. I have 
nothing to look forward to. Honourable employments 
are being given to this and that trumpery fellow ; while 
I, who am an honourable man, must be excluded from 
everything." 

Of literature he expressed himself as tired, there was 
little or nothing to be got out of it, save by writing 
humbug, which he refused to do. " My spirits are very 
low," he continues, " and your letters make them worse. 
I shall probably return by the end of next week ; but I 
shall want more money. I am sorry to spend money for 
it is our only friend, and God knows I use as little as 
possible, but I can't travel without it." 2 A few days later 

1 The first reference to the famous Appendix is contained in 
a letter to John Murray (1 ith Nov. 1853) in which Borrow writes: 
l> In answer to your inquiries about the fourth volume of Lavengro, 
I beg leave to say that I am occasionally occupied upon it. I shall 
probably add some notes." 

2 The Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp. 



xxv.] "OUR ONLY FRIEND" 413 

there is another letter with farther reference to money, 
and protests that he is spending as little as possible. 
" Perhaps you had better send another note," he writes, 
" and I will bring it home unchanged, if I do not want any 
part of it. I have lived very economically as far as I am 
concerned personally ; I have bought nothing, and have 
been working hard at the Museum." x 

These constant references to money seem to suggest 
either some difference between Borrow and his wife, or 
that he felt he was spending too much upon himself, and 
was anticipating her thoughts by assuring her of how 
economically he was living. He had an unquestioned 
right to spend, for he had added considerable sums to the 
exchequer from the profits of his first two books. 

Borrow returned to Yarmouth on 25th February. 
The Romany Rye was now rapidly nearing completion ; 
but there was no encouragement to publish a new book. 
He worked at The Romany Rye, not because he saw profit 
in it, not because he was anxious to give another book to 
an uneager public ; but because of the sting in its tail, 
because of the thunderbolt Appendix in which he paid off 
old scores against the critics and his personal enemies. 
The Romany Rye was to him a work of hate ; it was a 
bomb disguised as a book, which he intended to throw 
into the camp of his foes. He was tired of literature, by 
which he meant that he was tired of producing his best for 
a public that neither wanted nor understood it. He 
forgot that the works of a great writer are sometimes 
printed in his own that they may be read in another 
generation. 

1 The Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

MARCH 1854 — MAY 1 856 

r\URING the months that followed Borrow's return 
•**-* to Great Yarmouth, the question of the coming 
summer holiday was discussed. From the first Borrow 
himself had been for Wales. He was eager to pursue his 
Celtic researches further north. " I should not wonder if 
he went into Wales before he returns," Mrs Robert Taylor 
had written to her friend during Borrow's stay in 
Cornwall. His wife and Henrietta had " a hankering 
after what is fashionable," and suggested Harrogate or 
Leamington. To which Borrow replied that there was 
nothing he " so much hated as fashionable life." He, 
however, gave way, the two women followed suit, as he 
had intended they should, and Wales was decided upon. 
For Borrow the literature of Wales had always exercised 
a great attraction. Her bards were as no other bards. 
Ab Gwilym was to him the superior of Chaucer, and 
Huw Morris " the greatest songster of the seventeenth 
century." It was, he confessed, a desire to put to practical 
use his knowledge of the Welsh tongue, " such as it was," 
that first gave him the idea of going to Wales. 

The party left Great Yarmouth on 27th July 1854, 
spending one night at Peterborough and three at Chester. 
They reached Llangollen, which was to be their head- 
quarters, on 1st August. On 9th August Mrs George 
Borrow wrote to the old lady at Oulton, " We all much 
enjoy this wonderful and beautiful country. We are in a 

414 



xxvi] THE FIRST WELSH HOLIDAY 415 

lovely quiet spot. Dear George goes out exploring the 
mountains, and when he finds remarkable views takes us 
of an evening to see them." 

Borrow wanted to see Wales and get to know the 
people, and, above all, to speak with them in their own 
language, and on 27th August he started upon a walk- 
ing tour to Bangor, where he was to meet his wife and 
Henrietta, who were to proceed thither by rail. It was 
during this excursion that he encountered the delightful 
Papist-Orange fiddler, whose fortunes and fingers fluctuated 
between " Croppies Get Up " and " Croppies Lie Down." 

From Bangor Borrow explored the surrounding places 
of interest. He ascended Snowdon arm-in-arm with 
Henrietta, singing " at the stretch of my voice a celebrated 
Welsh stanza," the boy-guide following wonderingly behind. 
In spite of the fatigues of the climb, " the gallant girl " 
reached the summit and heard her stepfather declaim two 
stanzas of poetry in Welsh, to the grinning astonishment 
of a small group of English tourists and the great interest 
of a Welshman, who asked Borrow if he were a Breton. 

There is no question that Borrow was genuinely 
attached to Henrietta. " I generally call her daughter," he 
writes, " and with good reason, seeing that she has always 
shown herself a daughter to me — that she has all kinds 
of good qualities, and several accomplishments, knowing 
something of conchology, more of botany, drawing 
capitally in the Dutch style," 1 not to speak of her ability 
to play on the Spanish guitar. She was " the dear girl," 
or " the gallant girl," between whom and her stepfather 
existed a true spirit of comradeship. In 1844 she wrote 
to him, " And then that funny look' 2 would come into your 

1 Wild Wales, page 6. 

2 There appears to have been a slight cast in his (Borrovv's) left 
eye. The Queen of the Nokkums remarked that, like Will Faa, he 
had " a skellying look with the left eye " (Roma?io Lavo-Lil, page 267). 
Mr F. H. Bowring, who frequently met him, states that he "had a 
slight cast in the eye." 



416 THE WELSH HOLIDAY [1854 

eyes and you would call me 'poor old Hen.' " He seemed 
incapable of laughing, and one intimate friend states that 
she " never saw him even smiling, but there was a twinkle 
in his eyes which told you that he was enjoying himself 
just the same." 1 

About this time Mrs George Borrow wrote to old 
Mrs Borrow at Oulton Hall, saying that all was well with 
her son. 

" He is very regular in his morning and evening devotions, 
so that we all have abundant cause for thankfulness. . . . 
As regards your dear son and his peace and comfort, you 
have reason to praise and bless God on his account. . . . 
He is fully occupied. He keeps a daily Journal of all 
that goes on, so that he can make a most amusing book 
in a month, whenever he wishes to do so." 

The first sentence is very puzzling, and would seem to 
suggest that Borrow's moods were somehow or other 
associated with outbursts against religion. " Be sure you 
burn this, or do not leave it about," the old lady is 
admonished. 

On the day following the ascent of Snowdon, Mrs 
Borrow and Henrietta returned to Llangollen by train, 
leaving Borrow free to pursue his wanderings. He eventu- 
ally arrived at Llangollen on 6th September, by way of 
Carnarvon, Festiniog and Bala. After remaining another 
twenty days at Llangollen, he despatched his wife and 
stepdaughter home by rail. He then bought a small 
leather satchel, with a strap to sling it over his shoulder, 
packed in it " a white linen shirt, a pair of worsted 
stockings, a razor and a prayer-book." Having had his 
boots resoled and his umbrella repaired, he left Llangollen 
for South Wales, upon an excursion which was to occupy 
three weeks. During the course of this expedition he 
was taken for many things, from a pork-jobber to Father 
Toban himself, as whom he pronounced " the best Latin 
blessing I could remember" over two or three dozen Irish 

1 Elizabeth] H[arvey] in The Eastern Daily Press, 1st Oct. 1892. 



xxvi.] THE DESCENDANTS OF A POET 417 

reapers to their entire satisfaction. Eventually he arrived 
at Chepstow, having learned a great deal about wild 
Wales. 

One of the excursions that Borrow made from Bangor 
was to Llanfair in search of Ty Gronwy, the birthplace of 
Gronwy Owen. He found in the long, low house an old 
woman and five children, descendants of the poet, who 
stared at him wonderingly. To each he " gave a trifle." 
Asking whether they could read, he was told that the 
eldest could read anything, whether Welsh or English. 
In Wild Wales he gives an account of the interview. 

" ' Can you write ? ' said I to the child [the eldest], a 
little stubby girl of about eight, with a broad flat red face 
and grey eyes, dressed in a chintz gown, a little bonnet 
on her head, and looking the image of notableness. 

" The little maiden, who had never taken her eyes off 
of me for a moment during the whole time I had been in 
the room, at first made no answer; being, however, bid 
by her grandmother to speak, she at length answered in a 
soft voice, ' Medraf, I can.' 

" ' Then write your name in this book,' said I, taking 
out a pocket-book and a pencil, ' and write likewise that 
you are related to Gronwy Owen — and be sure you write 
in Welsh.' 

" The little maiden very demurely took the book and 
pencil, and placing the former on the table wrote as 
follows : — 

" ' Ellen Jones yn perthyn o bell i gronow owen.' l 

" That is, ' Ellen Jones belonging, from afar off to 
Gronwy Owen.' " 2 

Ellen Jones is now Ellen Thomas, and she well 
remembers Borrow coming along the lane, where she was 
playing with some other children, and asking for the 
house of Gronwy Owen. Later, when she entered the 

1 Ellen Jones actually wrote — 

Ellen Jones 
yn pithyn pell 
i gronow owen 

2 Wild Wales, pages 227-8. 

2 V 



418 THE WELSH HOLIDAY [1854 

house, she found him talking to her grandmother, who was 
a little deaf, as described in Wild Wales. Mrs Thomas' 
recollection of Borrow is that he had the appearance of 
possessing great strength. He had " bright eyes and 
shabby dress, more like a merchant than a gentleman, or 
like a man come to buy cattle [others made the same 
mistake]. But, dear me ! he did speak funny Welsh," she 
remarked to a student of Borrow who sought her out, 
"he could not pronounce the '11' [pronouncing the word 
" pell " as if it rhymed with tell, whereas it should be 
pronounced something like " pelth "], and his voice was 
very high ; but perhaps that was because my grandmother 
was deaf." He had plenty of words, but bad pronuncia- 
tion. William Thomas x laughed many a time at him 
coming talking his funny Welsh to him, and said he was 
glad he knew a few words of Spanish to answer him with. 
Borrow was, apparently, unconscious of any imperfec- 
tion in his pronunciation of the " 11." He has written : 
" ' Had you much difficulty in acquiring the sound of 
the "11"?' I think I hear the reader inquire. None 
whatever : the double 1 of the Welsh is by no means the 
terrible guttural which English people generally suppose 
it to be." 2 

Mrs Thomas is now sixty-seven years of age (she was 
eleven and not eight at the time of Borrow's visit) and 
still preserves carefully wrapped up the book from which 
she read to the white-haired stranger. The episode was 
not thought much of at the time, except by the child, 
whom it much excited. 3 

1 This was the mason of whom Borrow enquired the way, and who 
" stood for a moment or two, as if transfixed, a trowel motionless in 
one of his hands, and a brick in the other," who on recovering himself 
replied in "tolerable Spanish." — Wild Wales, page 225. 

2 Wild Wales, page 5. 

3 These particulars have been courteously supplied by Mr George 
Porter of Denbigh, who interviewed Mrs Thomas on 27th Dec. 1910. 
Borrow's accuracy in Wild Wales was photograph. The Norwich 
jeweller Rossi mentioned in Wild Wales (page 159 et seq.) was a 



xxvi.] AN ADVENTURE ON CADER IDRIS 419 

It was in all probability during this, his first tour in 
Wales, that Borrow was lost on Cader Idris, and spent the 
whole of one night in wandering over the mountain vainly 
seeking a path. The next morning he arrived at the inn 
utterly exhausted. It was quite in keeping with Borrow's 
nature to suppress from his book all mention of this 
unpleasant adventure. 1 

The Welsh holiday was unquestionably a success. 
Borrow's mind had been diverted from critics and his lost 
popularity. He had forgotten that in official quarters he 
had been overlooked. He was in the land of Ab Gwilym 
and Gronwy Owen. " There never was such a place for 
poets," he wrote ; " you meet a poet, or the birthplace of a 
poet, everywhere." 2 He was delighted with the simplicity 
of the people, and in no way offended by their persistent 
suspicion of all things Saxon. At least they knew their 
own poets ; and he could not help comparing the Welsh 
labouring man who knew Huw Morris, with his Suffolk 
brother who had never heard of Beowulf or Chaucer. He 
discoursed with many people about their bards, surprising 
them by his intimate knowledge of the poets and the 
poetry of Wales. He found enthusiasm " never scoffed at 
by the noble simple-minded genuine Welsh, whatever 
treatment it may receive from the coarse-hearted, sensual, 
selfish Saxon." 3 Sometimes he was reminded " of the 
substantial yoemen of Cornwall, particularly ... of my 
friends at Penquite." 4 Wherever he went he experienced 
nothing but kindness and hospitality, and it delighted him 
to be taken for a Cumro, as was frequently the case. 

friend of Borrow's with whom he frequently spent an evening 
conversing in Italian, "being anxious to perfect himself in that 
language." I quote from a letter from his son Mr Theodore Rossi. 
" There was an entire absence of pretence about him and we liked 
him very much — he always seemed desirous of learning." 

1 This story is told by Mr F. J. Bowring, son of Sir John Bowring. 
He heard it from Mrs Roberts, the landlady of the inn. 

- Wild Wales, page 274. 3 Wild Wales, page 130. 

4 Wild Wales, page 130. 



420 THE WELSH HOLIDAY [1855 

What Borrow writes about his Welsh is rather 
contradictory. Sometimes he represents himself as taken 
for a Welshman, at others as a foreigner speaking Welsh. 
" Oh, what a blessing it is to be able to speak Welsh ! " x 
he exclaims. He acknowledged that he could read Welsh 
with far more ease than he could speak it. There is 
absolutely no posing or endeavour to depict himself a 
perfect Welsh scholar, whose accent could not be distin- 
guished from that of a native. The literary results of the 
Welsh holiday were four Note Books written in pencil, from 
which Wild Wales was subsequently written. Borrow was 
in Wales for nearly sixteen weeks (ist Aug. — 16th 
November), of which about a third was devoted to expedi- 
tions on foot. 

In the annual consultations about holidays, Borrow's 
was always the dominating voice. For the year 1855 the 
Isle of Man was chosen, because it attracted him as a 
land of legend and quaint customs and speech. Accord- 
ingly during the early days of September Mrs Borrow 
and Henrietta were comfortably settled at Douglas, and 
Borrow began to make excursions to various parts of the 
island. He explored every corner of it, conversing with 
the people in Manx, collecting ballads and old, smoke- 
stained carvel 2, (or carol) books, of which he was successful 
in securing two examples. He discovered that the island 
possessed a veritable literature in these carvels, which 
were circulated in manuscript form among the neighbours 
of the writers. 

The old runic inscriptions that he found on the tomb- 

1 Wild Wales, page 1 50. 

2 These carvels were written by such young people as thought 
themselves "endowed with the poetic gift, to compose carols some 
time before Christmas, and to recite them in the parish churches. 
Those pieces which were approved of by the clergy were subse- 
quently chanted by their authors through their immediate neigh- 
bourhoods." (Introduction to Bayr Jairgey, Borrow's projected book 
on the Isle of Man.) 



xxvi.] THE ISLE OF MAN 421 

stones exercised a great fascination over Borrow. He 
would spend hours, or even days (on one occasion as 
much as a week), in deciphering one of them. Thirty 
years later he was remembered as " an accurate, pains- 
taking man." His evenings were frequently occupied in 
translating into English the Manx poem Illiam Dhoo, or 
" Brown William." He discovered among the Manx 
traditions much about Finn Ma Coul, or M'Coyle, who 
appears in The Romany Rye as a notability of Ireland. 
He ascended Snaefell, sought out the daughter of George 
Killey, the Manx poet, and had much talk with her, she 
taking him for a Manxman. The people of the island he 
liked. 

" In the whole world," he wrote in his ' Note Books,' 
" there is not a more honest, kindly race than the genuine 
Manx. Towards strangers they exert unbounded 
hospitality without the slightest idea of receiving any 
compensation, and they are, whether men or women, at 
any time willing to go two or three miles over mountain 
and bog to put strangers into the right road." 

During his stay in the Isle of Man, news reached 
Borrow of the death of a kinsman, William, son of Samuel 
Borrow, his cousin, a cooper at Devonport. William 
Borrow had gone to America, where he had " won a prize 
for a new and wonderful application of steam." His 
death is said to have occurred as the result of " mental 
fatigue." In this Borrow saw cause for grave complaint 
against the wretched English Aristocracy that forced 
talent out of the country by denying it employment or 
honour, which were all for their "connections and lick- 
spittles." 

The holiday in the Isle of Man had resulted in two 
quarto note books, aggregating ninety-six pages, closely 
written in pencil. Again Borrow planned to write a 
book, just as he had done on the occasion of the Cornish 
visit. Nothing, however, came of it. Among his papers 



422 THE WELSH HOLIDAY [1855 

was found the following draft of a suggested title- 
page :— 

BAYR JAIRGEY 

AND 

GLION DOO 

THE RED PATH AND THE BLACK VALLEY 
WANDERINGS IN QUEST OF MANX LITERATURE 

A curious feature of Mrs Borrow's correspondence is 
her friendly conspiracies, sometimes with John Murray, 
sometimes with Wood fall, the printer, asking them to send 
encouraging letters that shall hearten Borrow to greater 
efforts. On 26th November 1850 John Murray wrote to 
her : " I have determined on engraving [by W. Holl] 
Phillips' portrait 1 ... as a frontispiece to it \Lavengro\ 
I trust that this will not be disagreeable to you and the 
author — in fact I do it in confident expectation that it 
will meet with your assent ; I do not ask Mr Borrow's 
leave, remember." 

It must be borne in mind that Mrs Borrow had been 
in London a few days previously, in order to deliver to 
John Murray the manuscript of Lavcngro. Mrs Borrow's 
reply to this letter is significant. " With regard to the 
engraving," she writes (28th November), "7 like the idea 
of it, and when Mr Borrow remarked that he did not wish 
it (as we expected he would) I reminded him that his leave 
was not asked." 

Again, on 30th October 1852, Mrs Borrow wrote to 
Robert Cooke asking that either he or John Murray 
would write to Borrow enquiring as to his health, and 
progress with The Romany Rye, and how long it would be 
before the manuscript were ready for the printer. " Of 
course," she adds, " all this is in perfect confidence to 
Mr Murray and yourself, as you both of you know my 
truly excellent Husband well enough to be aware how much 
he every now and then requires an impetus to cause the 
1 Painted by H. W. Phillips in 1843. 



xxvi.] THE WORLD'S GREATEST 423 

large wheel to move round at a quicker pace. . . . Oblige 
me by committing this to the flames, and write to him 
just as you would have done, without hearing a word 
from me." On yet another occasion when she and Borrow 
were both in London, she writes to Cooke asking that either 
he " or Mr Murray will give my Husband a look, if it be 
only for a few minutes .... He seems rather low. Do 
not let this note remain on your table," she concludes, 
" or mention it." 

If Borrow were a problem to his wife and to his 
publisher, he presented equal difficulties to the country 
folk about Oulton. To one he was " a missionary out of 
work," to another " a man who kep' 'isself to 'isself " ; but 
to none was he the tired lion weary of the chase. " His 
great delight . . . was to plunge into the darkening mere 
at eventide, his great head and heavy shoulders ruddy 
in the rays of the sun. Here he hissed and roared and 
spluttered, sometimes frightening the eel-catcher sailing 
home in the half-light, and remembering suddenly school 
legends of river-sprites and monsters of the deep." 1 

In the spring following his return from the Isle of Man, 
Borrow made numerous excursions on foot through East 
Anglia. He seemed too restless to remain long in one 
place. During a tramp from Yarmouth to Ely by way of 
Cromer, Holt, Lynn and Wisbech, he called upon Anna 
Gurney. 2 His reason for doing so was that she was one 
of the three celebrities of the world he desired to see. 
The other two were Daniel O'Connell 3 and Lamplighter 
(the sire of Phosphorus), Lord Berners' winner of the 
Derby. Two of the world's notabilities had slipped 

1 Vestiges of Borrow : Some Personal Reminiscences. The Globe, 
2 1st July 1896. 

2 The Anglo-Saxon scholar (1795-1857), who though paralysed 
during the whole of her life visited Rome, Athens and other places. 
She was the first woman elected a member of the British Association. 

3 To judge from Sorrow's opinion of O'Connell previously quoted, 
" notoriety" would have been a more appropriate word in his case. 



424 THE WELSH HOLIDAY [1855 

through his fingers by reason of their deaths ; but he 
was determined that Anna Gurney, who lived at North 
Repps, should not evade him. He gave her notice of 
his intention to call, and found her ready to receive 
him. 

" When, according to his account, 1 he had been but a 
very short time in her presence, she wheeled her chair 
round and reached her hand to one of her bookshelves and 
took down an Arabic grammar, and put it into his hand, 
asking for explanation of some difficult point, which he 
tried to decipher ; but meanwhile she talked to him 
continuously ; when, said he, ' I could not study the Arabic 
grammar and listen to her at the same time, so I threw 
down the book and ran out of the room.' " 

It is said that Borrow ran until he reached Old Tucker's 
Inn at Cromer, where he ate "five excellent sausages" and 
found calm. He then went on to Sheringham and related 
the incident to the Upchers. 

These lonely walking tours soothed Borrows restless 
mind. He had constant change of scene, and his thoughts 
were diverted by the adventures of the roadside. He 
encountered many and interesting people, on one occasion 
an old man who remembered the fight between Painter 
and Oliver ; at another time he saw a carter beating his 
horse which had fallen down. " Give him a pint of ale, 
and I will pay for it," counselled Borrow. After the 
second pint the beast got up and proceeded, " pulling 
merrily . . . with the other horses." 

Ale was Borrow's sovereign remedy for the world's ills 
and wrongs. It was by ale that he had been cured when 
the " Horrors " were upon him in the dingle. " Oh, genial 
and gladdening is the power of good ale, the true and 
proper drink of Englishmen," he exclaims after having 
heartened Jack Slingsby and his family. " He is not 
deserving of the name of Englishman," he continues, " who 

1 Given to the Rev. A. W. Upcher and related by him in The 
Athenceum, 22nd July 1893. 



xxvi.] ALE 425 

speaketh against ale, that is good ale." J To John Murray 
(the Third) he wrote in his letter of sympathy on the 
death of his father : " Pray keep up your spirits, and that 
you may be able to do so, take long walks and drink 
plenty of Scotch ale with your dinner . . . God bless you." 

He liked ale " with plenty of malt in it, and as little 
hop as well may be — ale at least two years old."' 2 The 
period of its maturity changed with his mood. In another 
place he gives nine or ten months as the ideal age. 3 He 
was all for an Act of Parliament to force people to brew good 
ale. He not only drank good ale himself; but prescribed 
it as a universal elixir for man and beast. Hearing from 
Elizabeth Harvey " of a lady who was attached to a 
gentleman," Borrow demanded bluntly, " Well, did he make 
her an offer ? " " No," was the response. " Ah," Borrow 
replied with conviction, " if she had given him some good 
ale he would." 4 

He loved best old Burton, which, with '37 port, were 
his favourites ; yet he would drink whatever ale the road- 
side-inn provided, as if to discipline his stomach. It has 
been said that he habitually drank " swipes," a thin cheap 
ale, because that was the drink of his gypsy friends ; but 
Borrow's friendship certainly did not often involve him in 
anything so distasteful. 

1 Lavengro, page 361. 2 The Romany Rye, page 309. 

3 Wild Wales, page 285. i The Eastern Daily Press, 1st Oct. 1892. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE ROMANY RYE. 1854—1859 

T30RROW was not a great correspondent, and he left 
■■-' behind him very few letters from distinguished men 
of his time. Among those few were several from 
Edward FitzGerald, whose character contrasted so 
strangely with that of the tempestuous Borrow. In 1856 
FitzGerald wrote : — 

31 Great Portland Street, 
London, 17 th October 1856. 

My DEAR Sir, — It is / who send you the new Turkish 
Dictionary [Redhouse's Turkish & English Dictionary] 
which ought to go by this Post ; my reasons being that I 
bought it really only for the purpose of doing that little 
good to the spirited Publisher of the book (who thought 
when he began it that the [Crimean] War was to last), and 
I send it to you because I should be glad of your opinion, 
if you can give it. I am afraid that you will hardly 
condescend to use it, for you abide in the old Meninsky ; 
but if you will use it, I shall be very glad. I don't think / 
ever shall ; and so what is to be done with it now it is 
bought ? 

I don't know what Kerrich told you of my being too 
lazy to go over to Yarmouth to see you a year ago. No 
such thing as that. I simply had doubts as to whether you 
would not rather remain unlookt for. I know I enjoyed 
my evening with you a month ago. I wanted to ask you 
to read some of the Northern Ballads too ; but you shut the 
book. 

I must tell you. I am come up here on my way to 
Chichester to be married ! to Miss Barton (of Quaker 
memory) and our united ages amount to 96 ! — a dangerous 



xxvii.] "OUR TIME SEEMS COMING" 427 

experiment on both sides. She at least brings a fine head 
and heart to the bargain — worthy of a better market. 
But it is to be, and I dare say you will honestly wish we 
may do well. 

Keep the book as long as you will. It is useless to 
me. I shall be to be heard of through Geldeston Hall, 
Beccles. With compliments to Mrs Borrow, believe 
me, 

Yours truly, 

Edward FitzGerald. 

P.S. — Donne is well, and wants to know about you. 
A few months later FitzGerald wrote again : 

Albert House, Gorleston, 
6th July 1857. 

Dear Borrow, — Will you send me [The Rubaiyat 
of Omar Khayyam] by bearer. I only want to look 
at him, for that Frenchman 1 has been misquoting 
him in a way that will make [Professor] E. Cowell [of 
Cambridge] answerable for another's blunder, which must 
not be. You shall have 'Omar back directly, or whenever 
you want him, and I should really like to make you a 
copy (taking my time) of the best Quatrains. I am now 
looking over the Calcutta MS. which has 500 ! — 
very many quite as good as those in the MS. you have ; 
but very many in both MSS. are well omitted. 

I have been for a fortnight to Geldeston where Kerrich 
is not very well. I shall look for you one day in my 
Yarmouth rounds, and you know how entirely disengaged 
and glad to see you I am here. I have two fresh Nieces 
with me — and I find I gave you the worst wine of two 
samples Diver sent me. I wish you would send word by 
bearer you are better — this one word written will be 
enough you see. 

My old Parson Crabbe is bowing down under 
epileptic fits, or something like, and I believe his brave 
old white head will soon sink into the village Church- 
sward. Why, our time seems coming. Make way, 
Gentlemen ! — Yours very truly, 

Edward FitzGerald. 

1 Garcin de Tassy. Note sur les Ruba'i'yat de 'Omar Khaiyam, 
which appeared in the Journal Asiatique. 



428 THE ROMANY RYE [1854 

What effect the sweet gentleness of FitzGerald's 
nature had upon that of Borrow is not known, for the 
replies have not been preserved. FitzGerald was a man 
capable of soothing the angriest and most discontented 
mind, and it is a misfortune that he saw so little of 
Borrow. In the early part of the following year (24th 
Jan. 1857) FitzGerald wrote to Professor E. B. Cowell of 
Cambridge : — 

" I was with Borrow a week ago at Donne's, and also 
at Yarmouth three months ago : he is well, but not yet 
agreed with Murray. He read me a long Translation he 
had made from the Turkish : which I could not admire, 
and his Taste becomes stranger than ever." x 

From Wales Mrs George Borrow had written (Sept. 
1854) to old Mrs Borrow : " He [Borrow] will, I expect at 
Christmas, publish his other work [The Romany Rye] 
together with his poetry in all the European languages." 2 
In November (1854) the manuscript of The Romany 
Rye was delivered to John Murray, who appears to have 
taken his time in reading it ; for it was not until 23rd 
December that he expressed his views in the following 
letter. Even when the letter was written it was allowed 
to remain in John Murray's desk for five weeks, not 
being sent until 27th January : — 

My dear Borrow, — I have read with care the MS. 
of The Romany Rye and have pondered anxiously over it ; 
and in what I am about to write I think I may fairly 
claim the privilege of a friend deeply interested in you 
personally, as well as in your reputation as author, and by 
no means insensible to the abilities displayed in your 
various works. It is my firm conviction then, that you 
will incur the certainty of failure and run the risque of 
injuring your literary fame by publishing the MS. as it 

1 Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald, 1889. 

2 Songs of Europe, or Me Meal Translations from All the European 
Languages, With Brief Prefatory Retnarhs on Each Language and 
its Literature. 2 vols. (Advertised as " Ready for the Press " at the 
end of The Romany Rye. See page 438.) 



xxvii.] JOHN MURRAY'S ADVICE 429 

stands. Very large omissions seem to me — and in this, 
Elwin, 1 no mean judge, concurs — absolutely indispensable. 
That Lavengro would have profited by curtailment, I 
stated before its publication. The result has verified my 
anticipations, and in the present instance I feel compelled 
to make it the condition of publication. You can well 
imagine that it is not my interest to shorten a book from 
two volumes to one unless there were really good cause. 

Lavengro clearly has not been successful. Let us not 
then risque the chance of another failure, but try to avoid 
the rock upon which we then split. You have so great 
store of interesting matter in your mind and in your 
notes, that I cannot but feel it to be a pity that you 
should harp always upon one string, as it were. It seems 
to me that you have dwelt too long on English ground 
in this new work, and have resuscitated some characters 
of the former book (such as F. Ardry) whom your readers 
would have been better pleased to have left behind. 
Why should you not introduce us rather to those novel 
scenes of Moscovite and Hungarian life respecting which 
I have heard you drop so many stimulating allusions. 
Do not, I pray, take offence at what I have written. 
It is difficult and even painful for me to assume the office 
of critic, and this is one of the reasons why this note has 
lingered so long in my desk. Fortunately, in the advice 
I am tendering I am supported by others of better literary 
judgment than myself, and who have also deep regard 
for you. I will specify below some of the passages which 
I would point out for omission. — With best remembrances, 
I remain, my dear Borrow, Your faithful publisher and 
sincere friend, 

John Murray. 

Suggestions for Omission. 

The Hungarian in No. 6. 
The Jockey Story, terribly spun out, No. y. 
Visit to the Church, too long. 
Interview with the Irishman, Do. 

Learning Chinese, too much repetition in this part of a 
very interesting chapter. 

1 Rev. Whitwell Elwin, editor of The Quarterly Review. See 
post, p. 431. 



430 THE ROMANY RYE [1855 

The Postilion and Highwayman. 

Throughout the MS. condensation is indispensable. Many 

of the narratives are carried to a tedious length by 

details and repetition. 
The dialogue with Ursula, the song, etc., border on the 

indelicate. I like much Horncastle Fair, the Chinese 

scholar, except objection noted above. 
Grooming of the horse. 
January 27, 1855. 

On 29th January, Mrs Borrow wrote to John Murray 
a letter that was inspired by Borrow himself. Dr Knapp 
discovered the original draft, some of which was in 
Borrow's own hand. It runs : — 

DEAR Mr MURRAY, — We have received your letters. 
In the first place I beg leave to say something on a very 
principal point. You talk about conditions of publishing. 
Mr Borrow has not the slightest wish to publish the book. 
The MS. was left with you because you wished to see it, 
and when left, you were particularly requested not to let 
it pass out of your own hands. But it seems you have 
shown it to various individuals whose opinions you repeat. 
What those opinions are worth may be gathered from the 
following fact. 

The book is one of the most learned works ever 
written ; yet in the summary of the opinions which you 
give, not one single allusion is made to the learning which 
pervades the book, no more than if it contained none at 
all. It is treated just as if all the philological and 
historical facts were mere inventions, and the book a 
common novel. . . . 

With regard to Lavengro it is necessary to observe 
that if ever a book experienced infamous and undeserved 
treatment it was that book. It was attacked in every 
form that envy and malice could suggest, on account of Mr 
Borrow's acquirements and the success of The Bible in 
Spain, and it was deserted by those whose duty it was, in 
some degree to have protected it. No attempt was ever 
made to refute the vile calumny that it was a book got 
up against the Popish agitation of '51. It was written 
years previous to that period — a fact of which none is 
better aware than the Publisher. Is that calumny to be 
still permitted to go unanswered ? 



xxvii.] BORROW REBUKES HIS PUBLISHER 431 

If these suggestions are attended to, well and good ; 
if not, Mr Borrow can bide his time. He is independent 
of the public and of everybody. Say no more on that 
Russian Subject. Mr Borrow has had quite enough of 
the press. If he wrote a book on Russia, it would be 
said to be like The Bible in Spain, or it would be said 
to be unlike The Bible in Spain, and would be blamed 
in either case. He has written a book in connection with 
England such as no other body could have written, and 
he now rests from his labours. He has found England an 
ungrateful country. It owes much to him, and he owes 
nothing to it. If he had been a low ignorant impostor, 
like a person he could name, he would have been employed 
and honoured. — I remain, Yours sincerely, 

Mary Borrow. 

On 5th April 1856 Mrs Borrow wrote again, requesting 
Murray to return the manuscript, but for what purpose 
she does not state. Two days later it was despatched 
by rail from Albemarle Street. 

Some years before, Borrow had met Rev. Whitwell 
Elwin, Rector of Booton, somewhere about the time he 
(Elwin) came up to London to edit The Quarterly Review, 
viz., 1853. 1 The first interview between the two men has 
been described as characteristic of both. 

" Borrow was just then very sore with his slashing 
critics, and on someone mentioning that Elwin was a 
' Quartering reviewer,' he said, ' Sir, I wish you a better 
employment.' Then hastily changing the subject, he 
called out, ' What party zreyou in the Church — Tractarian, 
Moderate, or Evangelical ? I am happy to say, / am 
the old High.' ' I am happy to say I am not,' was 
Elwin's emphatic reply. Borrow boasted of his proficiency 
in the Norfolk dialect, which he endeavoured to speak 
as broadly as possible. ' I told him,' said Elwin, ' that 
he had not cultivated it with his usual success.' As the 
conversation proceeded it became less disputatious, and 
the two ended by becoming so cordial that they promised 

1 Elwin could not very well have known Borrow all his, Borrow's 
life, as Dr Knapp states, for he was fifteen years younger, being born 
26th Feb. 18 1 6. 



432 THE ROMANY RYE [1857 

to visit each other. Borrow fulfilled his promise in the 
following October, when he went to Booton, and was 
1 full of anecdote and reminiscence,' and delighted the 
rectory children by singing them songs in the gypsy 
tongue. Elwin during this visit urged him to try his 
hand at an article for the Review. ' Never,' he said, 
' I have made a resolution never to have anything to do 
with such a blackguard trade.' " l 

Elwin became greatly interested in The Romany Rye. 
He endeavoured to influence its composition, and even 
wrote to Borrow begging him " to give his sequel to 
Lavengro more of an historical, and less of a romancing 
air." He was not happy about the book. He wrote to 
John Murray in March : — 

" ' It is not the statements themselves which provoke 
incredulity, but the melodramatic effect which he tries to 
impart to all his adventures.' Instead of 'roaring like a 
lion,' in reply, as Elwin had expected, he returned quite a 
' lamb-like ' note, which gave promise of a greater success 
for his new work than its precursor." 2 

Borrow appears to have become tired of biding his 
time with regard to The Romany Rye, and on 27th Feb. 
1857 he wrote to John Murray to say that "the work 
must go to press, and that unless the printing is forthwith 
commenced, I must come up to London and make 
arrangements myself. Time is passing away. It ought 
to have appeared many years ago. I can submit to no 
more delays." The work was accordingly proceeded with, 
and Elwin wrote a criticism of the work for The Quarterly 
Review from the proof-sheets : — 

" When the review was almost finished, it was on the 
point of being altogether withdrawn, owing to a passage 
in Romany Rye which Elwin said was clearly meant to be 

1 Some XV 111. Century Men of Letters. Ed. Warwick Elwin, 
1902. 

2 Some X VIII. Century Men of Letters. Ed. Warwick Elwin, 
1902. 



xxvii.] A DIGNIFIED REJOINDER 433 

a reflection on his friend Ford, 'to avenge the presumed 
refusal of the latter to praise Lavengro in The Quarterly 
Review? ' I am very anxious,' he said, ' to get Borrow 
justice for rare merits which have been entirely overlooked, 
but if he persists in publishing an attack of this kind I 
shall, I fear, not be able to serve him.' The objectionable 
paragraphs had been written by Borrow under a mis- 
apprehension, and he cancelled them as soon as he was 
convinced of his error." 1 

John Murray determined not to publish the book unless 
the offending passage were removed. He wrote to Borrow 
the following letter : — 

%th April 1857. 

My DEAR BORROW, — When I have done anything 
towards you deserving of apology I will not hesitate to 
offer one. As it is, I have acted loyally towards you, 
and with a view to maintain your interests. 

I agreed to publish your present work solely with the 
object of obliging you, and in a great degree at the strong 
recommendation of Cooke. I meant (as was my duty) to 
do my very best to promote its success. You on your 
side promised to listen to me in regard to any necessary 
omissions ; and on the faith of this, I pointed out one 
omission, which I make the indispensable condition of my 
proceeding further with the book. I have asked nothing 
unfair nor unreasonable — nay, a compliance with the 
request is essential for your own character as an author 
and a man. 

You are the last man that I should ever expect to 
" frighten or bully " ; and if a mild but firm remonstrance 
against an offensive passage in your book is interpreted 
by you into such an application, I submit that the grounds 
for the notion must exist nowhere but in your own 
imagination. The alternative offered to you is to omit 
or publish elsewhere. Nothing shall compel me to publish 
what you have written. Think calmly and dispassionately 
over this, and when you have decided let me know. 

Yours very faithfully, 

John Murray. 

1 Some XVII I. Century Men of Letters. Ed. Warwick Elwin, 
1902. 

2 E 



434 THE ROMANY RYE [1857 

The reference that had so offended Murray and Elwin 
had, in all probability been interpolated in proof form, 
otherwise it would have been discovered either when 
Murray read the manuscript or Elwin the proofs. By 
return of post came the following reply from Borrow, then 
at Great Yarmouth : — 

Dear Sir, — Yesterday I received your letter. You 
had better ask your cousin [Robert Cooke] to come down 
and talk about matters. After Monday I shall be dis- 
engaged and shall be most happy to see him. And now 
I must tell you that you are exceedingly injudicious. 
You call a chapter heavy, and I, not wishing to appear 
unaccommodating, remove or alter two or three passages 
for which I do not particularly care, whereupon you 
make most unnecessary comments, obtruding your private 
judgment upon matters with which you have no business, 
and of which it is impossible that you should have a 
competent knowledge. If you disliked the passages you 
might have said so, but you had no right to say anything 
more. I believe that you not only meant no harm, but 
that your intentions were good ; unfortunately, however, 
people with the best of intentions occasionally do a great 
deal of harm. In your language you are frequently in 
the highest degree injudicious ; for example, in your last 
letter you talk of obliging me by publishing my work. 
Now is not that speaking very injudiciously? Surely you 
forget that I could return a most cutting answer were I 
disposed to do so. 

I believe, however, that your intentions are good, 
and that you are disposed to be friendly. — Yours truly, 

George Borrow. 

The tone of this letter is strangely reminiscent of 
some of the Rev. Andrew Brandram's admonitions to 
Borrow himself, during his association with the Bible 
Society. Borrow bowed to the wind, and the offending 
passage was deleted, and The Romany Rye eventually 
appeared on 30th April 1857, in an edition of a thousand 
copies. The public, or such part of it as had not forgotten 
Borrow, had been kept waiting six years to know what 



xxvii.] A QUESTION OF ACCURACY 435 

had happened on the morning after the storm. Lavengro 
had ended by the postilion concluding his story with 
" Young gentleman, I will now take a spell on your blanket 
— young lady, good-night," and presumably the three, 
Borrow, Isopel Berners and their guest had lain down to 
sleep, and a great quiet fell upon the dingle, and the moon 
and the stars shone down upon it, and the red glow from 
the charcoal in the brazier paled and died away. 

The Romany Rye is a puzzling book. The latter 
portion, at least, seems to suggest " spiritual autobio- 
graphy." It reveals the man, his atmosphere, his 
character, and nowhere better than among the jockeys at 
Horncastle. It gives a better and more convincing picture 
of Borrow than the most accurate list of dates and 
occurrences, all vouched for upon unimpeachable authority. 
It is impressionism applied to autobiography, which has 
always been considered as essentially a subject for photo- 
graphic treatment. Borrow thought otherwise, with the 
result that many people decline to believe that his picture 
is a portrait, because there is a question as to the dates. 

Among the reviews, which were on the whole 
unfriendly, was the remarkable notice in The Quarterly 
Review, by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin : — x 

" Nobody," he wrote, " sympathises with wounded 
vanity, and the world only laughs when a man angrily 
informs it that it does not rate him at his true value. The 
public to whom he appeals must, after all, be the judge of 
his pretensions. Their verdict at first is frequently wrong, 
but it is they themselves who must reverse it, and not the 
author who is upon his trial before them. The attacks of 
critics, if they are unjust, invariably yield to the same 
remedy. Though we do not think that Mr Borrow is a 
good counsel in his own cause, we are yet strongly of the 
opinion that Time in this case has some wrongs to repair, 
and that Lavengro has not obtained the fame which was its 
due. It contains passages which in their way are not 
surpassed by anything in English Literature." 

1 Entitled Roving Life in England. March 1S57. 



436 THE ROMANY RYE [1857 

The value of these prophetic words lies in the fine 
spirit of fatherly reproof in which the whole review was 
written. It is the work of a critic who regarded literature 
as a thing to be approached, both by author and reviewer, 
with grave and deliberate ceremony, not with enthusiasm 
or prejudice. From any other source the following words 
would not have possessed the significance they did, coming 
from a man of such sane ideas with the courage to express 
them : — 

" Various portions of the history are known to be a 
faithful narrative of Mr Borrow's career, while we 
ourselves can testify, as to many other parts of his 
volumes, that nothing can excel the fidelity with which he 
has described both men and things. Far from his showing 
any tendency to exaggeration, such of his characters as 
we chance to have known, and they are not a few, are 
rather within the truth than beyond it. However 
picturesquely they may be drawn, the lines are invariably 
those, of nature. Why under these circumstances he 
should envelop the question in mystery is more than we 
can divine. There can be no doubt that the larger part, 
and possibly the whole, of the work is a narrative of actual 
occurrences." 1 

The Appendix itself, which had drawn from Elwin the 
grave declaration that " Mr Borrow is very angry with his 
critics," is a fine piece of rhetorical denunciation. It opens 
with the deliberate restraint of a man who feels the fury 
of his wrath surging up within him. It tells again the 
story of Lavengro, pointing morals as it goes. Then the 
studied calm is lost — Priestcraft, " Foreign Nonsense," 
" Gentility Nonsense," " Canting Nonsense," " Pseudo- 
Critics," " Pseudo-Radicals " he flogs and pillories merci- 
lessly until, arriving at " The Old Radical," he throws off 
all restraint and lunges out wildly, mad with hate and 

1 Elwin had already testified, also in The Quarterly Review, to 
the accuracy of Borrow's portrait of B, R. Haydon in Lavengro, as 
confirmed by documentary evidence, and this after first reading the 
account as "a comic exaggeration." 



xxvii.] A FAILURE 437 

despair. As a piece of literary folly, the Appendix to The 
Romany Rye has probably never been surpassed. It 
alienated from Borrow all but his personal friends, and it 
sealed his literary fate as far as his own generation was 
concerned. In short, he had burnt his boats. 

Borrow had sent a copy of The Romany Rye to 
FitzGerald, which is referred to by him in a letter written 
from Gorleston to Professor Cowell (5th June 1857) : — 

" Within hail almost lives George Borrow who has 
lately published, and given me, two new Volumes of 
Lavengro called Romany Rye, with some excellent things, 
and some very bad (as I have made bold to write to him 
— how shall I face him !). You would not like the Book 
at all, I think." 1 

Borrow was bitterly disappointed at the effect pro- 
duced by The Romany Rye. On someone once saying that 
it was the finest piece of literary invective since Swift, he 
replied, " Yes, I meant it to be ; and what do you think 
the effect was ? No one took the least notice of it ! " 2 

The Romany Rye was not a success. The thousand 
copies lasted a year. When it appeared likely that a 
second edition would be required, Borrow wrote to John 
Murray urging him not to send the book to the press 
again until he " was quite sure the demand for it will at 
least defray all attendant expenses." He saw that 
whatever profits had resulted from the publication of the 
first edition, were in danger of being swallowed up in the 
preparation of a second. When this did eventually make 
its appearance in 1858, it was limited to 750 copies, which 
lasted until 1872. 

Borrow's own attitude with regard to the work and 
his wisdom in publishing it is summed up in a letter to 
John Murray (17th Sept. 1857): — 

" I was very anxious to bring it out," he writes ; " and 
I bless God that I had the courage and perseverance to do 

1 Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald, 1 889. 

2 Mr A. Egmont Hake in Atheiueum, 13th Aug. 1881. 



438 THE ROMANY RYE [1857 

so. It is of course unpalatable to many ; for it scorns to 
foster delusion, to cry ' peace where there is no peace,' and 
denounces boldly the evils which are hurrying the country 
to destruction, and which have kindled God's anger 
against it, namely, the pride, insolence, cruelty, covetous- 
ness, and hypocrisy of its people, and above all the rage 
for gentility, which must be indulged in at the expense of 
every good and honourable feeling." 

The writing of the Appendix had aroused in Borrow 
all his old enthusiasm, and he appears to have come to the 
determination to publish a number of works, including 
a veritable library of translations. At the end of The 
Romany Rye appeared a lengthy list of books in pre- 
paration. 1 

1 Works by the Author of The Bible in Spain, ready for the Press. 

In Two Volumes, Celtic Bards, Chiefs, and Kings. — In Two 
Volumes, Wild Wales, Its People, Language, and Scenery. — In Two 
Volumes, Songs of Europe ; or, Metrical Translations From all the 
European Languages. With brief Prefatory Remarks on each 
Language and its Literature. — In Two Volumes, Kcempe Viser ; 
Songs about Giants and Heroes. With Romantic and Historical 
Ballads, Translated from the Ancient Danish. With an Introduction 
and Copious Notes. — In One Volume, The Turkish Jester ; or, The 
Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Efendi. Translated from the 
Turkish. With an Introduction. — In Two Volumes, Penquite and 
Pentyre ; or, The Head of the Forest and the Headland. A Book on 
Cornwall. — In One Volume, Russian Popular Tales, With an Intro- 
duction and Notes. Contents : — The Story of Emelian the Fool ; 
The Story of the Frog and the Hero ; The Story of the Golden 
Mountain ; The Story of the Seven Sevenlings ; The Story of the 
Eryslan ; The Story of the Old Man and his Son, the Crane; The 
Story of the Daughter of the Stroey ; The Story of Klim ; The 
Story of Prince Vikor ; The Story of Prince Peter ; The Story of 
Yvashka with the Bear's Ear. — In One Volume, The Sleeping 
Bard ; or, Visions of the World, Death, & Hell. By 
Master Elis Wyn. Translated from the Cambrian British. — In 
Two Volumes (Unfinished), Northern-Skalds, Kings, and Earls. — 
The Death of Balder ; A Heroic Play. Translated from the Danish 
ofEvald. — In One Volume, Bayr Jairgey and Glion Doo : The Red 
Path and the Black Valley. Wanderings in Quest of Manx 
Literature. 



xxvii.] DEATH OF OLD MRS BORROW 439 

In August 1857 Borrow paid a second visit to Wales, 
walking " upwards of four hundred miles." Starting from 
Laugharne in Carmarthenshire, he visited Tenby, 
Pembroke, Milford Haven, Haverford, St David's, Fish- 
guard, Newport, Cardigan, Lampeter; passing into 
Brecknockshire, he eventually reached Mortimer's Cross in 
Hereford and thence to Shrewsbury. In October he was 
at Leighton, Donnington and Uppington, where he found 
traces of Gronwy Owen, the one-time curate and all-time 
poet. 

Throughout his life Borrow had shown by every 
action and word written about her, the great love he bore 
his mother. When his wife wrote to her and he was too 
restless to do so himself, he would interpolate two or 
three lines to " My dear Mamma." She was always in 
his thoughts, and he never wavered in his love for her 
and devotion to her comfort ; whilst she looked upon him 
as only a mother so good and so tender could look upon 
a son who had become her " only hope." 

For many years of her life it had been ordained that 
this brave old lady should live alone. 1 In the middle of 
August 1858 the news reached Borrow that his mother 
had been taken suddenly ill. She was in her eighty- 
seventh year, and at such an age all illnesses are 
dangerous. Borrow hastened to Oulton, and arrived just 
in time to be with her at the last. 

Thus on 16th August 1858, of "pulmonary congestion," 
died Anne Borrow, who had followed her husband about 
with his regiment, and had reared and educated her two 
boys under circumstances of great disadvantage. She 
had lost one ; but the other, her youngest born, whom 
she had so often shielded from his father's reproaches, 
had been spared to her, and she had seen him famous. 
Upon her grave in Oulton Churchyard the son caused 

1 " She was a lady of striking figure and very graceful manners, 
perhaps more serious than vivacious." — Mr A. Egmont Hake in The 
Athenaum, 13th August 1881. 



440 THE ROMANY RYE [1859 

to be inscribed the words, " She was a good wife and a 
good mother," than which no woman can ask more. 1 

The death of his mother was a great shock to Borrow. 
" He felt the blow keenly," Mrs Borrow wrote to John 
Murray, " and I advised a tour in Scotland to recruit his 
health and spirits." Accordingly he went North early in 
October, leaving his wife and Henrietta at Great 
Yarmouth. He visited the Highlands, walking several 
hundred miles. Mull struck him as " a very wild country, 
perhaps the wildest in Europe." Many of its place-names 
reminded him strongly of the Isle of Man. At the end 
of November he finished up the tour at Lerwick in 
Shetland, where he bought presents for his "loved ones," 
having seen Greenock, Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, Inver- 
ness, Wick, Thurso among other places. His impressions 
were not altogether favourable to the Scotch. " A queerer 
country I never saw in all my life," he wrote later . . . 
" a queerer set of people than the Scotch you would 
scarcely see in a summer's day." 2 

In the following year (1859) an excursion was made 
to Ireland by Borrow and his family. Making Dublin 
his headquarters, where he left his wife and Henrietta 
comfortably settled, he tramped to Connemara and the 
Giant's Causeway, the expedition being full of adventure 
and affording him " much pleasure," in spite of the fact 
that he was " frequently wet to the skin, and indifferently 
lodged." 

Borrow had inherited from his mother some property 
at Mattishall Burgh, one and a half miles from his birth- 
place, consisting of some land, a thatched house and 
outbuildings, now demolished. This was let to a small- 
holder named Henry Hill. Borrow thought very highly 
of his tenant, and for hours together would tramp up and 

1 She bequeathed to her son by will "all and every thing" of 
which she died possessed, charging him with the delivery of any gift 
to any other person she might desire. 

2 Wild Wales, page 548. 



xxvil] EAST ANGLIAN SUSPICION 441 

down beside him as he ploughed the land, asking questions, 
and hearing always something new from the amazing 
stores of nature knowledge that Henry Hill had acquired. 
This Norfolk worthy appears to have been possessed of 
a genius for many things. He was well versed in herbal 
lore, a self-taught 'cellist, playing each Sunday in the 
Congregational Chapel at Mattishall, and an equally 
self-taught watch-repairer ; but his chief claim to fame 
was as a bee-keeper, local tradition crediting him with 
being the first man to keep bees under glass. He would 
solemnly state that his bees, whom he looked upon as 
friends, talked to him. On Sundays the country folk for 
miles round would walk over to Mattishall Burgh to see 
old Henry Hill's bees, and hear him expound their lore. 
It was perforce Sunday, there was no other day for the 
Norfolk farm-labourer of that generation, who seemed 
always to live on the verge of starvation. Borrow him- 
self expressed regret to Henry Hill that it had not been 
possible to add the education of the academy to that 
of the land. He saw that the combination would have 
produced an even more remarkable man. 

In Norfolk all strangers are regarded with suspicion. 
Lifelong friendships are not contracted in a day. The 
East Anglian is shrewd, and requires to know something 
about those whom he admits to the sacred inner circle 
of his friendship. Borrow was well-known in the 
Mattishall district, and was looked upon with more than 
usual suspicion. He was unquestionably a strange man, 
in speech, in appearance, in habits. He could and would 
knock down any who offended him; but, worst of all, he 
was the intimate of gypsies, sat by their fires, spoke in 
their tongue. The population round about was entirely 
an agricultural one, and all united in hating the gypsies 
as their greatest enemies, because of their depredations. 
Add to this the fact that Borrow was a frequenter of 
public-houses, of which there were seven in the village, 
and was wont to boast that you could get at the true 



442 THE ROMANY RYE [1859 

man only after he had been mellowed into speech by 
good English ale. Then he would open his heart 
and unburden his mind of all the accumulated knowledge 
that he possessed, and add something to the epic of the 
soil. Borrow's overbearing manner made people shy of 
him. On one occasion he told John, the son and successor 
of Henry Hill, that he ought to be responsible for the debt 
of his half-brother ; the debt, it may be mentioned, was 
to Borrow. 

There is no better illustration of the suspicion with 
which Borrow was regarded locally, than an incident that 
occurred during one of his visits to Mattishall. He 
called upon John Hill at Church Farm to collect his rent. 
The evening was spent very agreeably. Borrow recited 
some of his ballads, quoted Scripture and languages, and 
sang a song. He was particularly interested on account 
of Mrs Hill being from London, where she knew many 
of his haunts. He remained the whole evening with the 
family and partook of their meal ; but was allowed to go 
to one of the seven public-houses for a bed, although there 
were spare bedrooms in the house that he might have 
occupied. Such was the suspicion that Borrow's habits 
created in the minds of his fellow East Anglians. 1 

1 These particulars have been kindly supplied by Mr D. B. Hill of 
Mattishall, Norfolk. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

JULY 1859 — JANUARY 1 869 

A FTER his second tour in Wales, Borrow had sub- 
-*■*• mitted to John Murray the manuscript of his trans- 
lation of The Sleeping Bard, which in 1830 had so 
alarmed the little Welsh bookseller of Smithfield. " I 
really want something to do," Borrow wrote, " and seeing 
the work passing through the press might amuse me." 
Murray, however, could not see his way to accept the 
offer, and the manuscript was returned. Borrow 
decided to publish the book at his own expense, and 
accordingly commissioned a Yarmouth man to print him 
250 copies, upon the title-page of which John Murray 
permitted his name to appear. 

In the note in which he tells of the Welsh bookseller's 
doubts and fears, Borrow goes on to assure his readers 
that there is no harm in the book. 

" It is true," he says, " that the Author is any thing 
but mincing in his expressions and descriptions, but there 
is nothing in the Sleeping Bard which can give offence to 
any but the over fastidious. There is a great deal of 
squeamish nonsense in the world ; let us hope however 
that there is not so much as there was. Indeed can we 
doubt that such folly is on the decline, when we find 
Albemarle Street in '6o, willing to publish a harmless 
but plain speaking book which Smithfield shrank from 
in '30." 

The edition was very speedily exhausted, largely on 
account of an article entitled, The Welsh and Their 



444 LIFE IN LONDON [1859 

Literature, written years before, that Borrow adapted as 
a review of the book, and published anonymously in The 
Quarterly Reviezv (Jan. 1861). The Sleeping Bard was not 
reprinted. 

The next event of importance in Borrow's life was his 
removal to London with Mrs Borrow and Henrietta. 
Towards the end of the Irish holiday (4th Nov. 1859), Mrs 
Borrow had written to John Murray : " If all be well in the 
Spring, I shall wish to look around, and select a pleasant, 
healthy residence within from three to ten miles of 
London." Borrow may have felt more at liberty to make 
the change now that his mother was dead, although whilst 
she was at Oulton he was as little company for her at 
Great Yarmouth as he would have been in London. 
Whatever led them to the decision to take up their 
residence in London, Borrow and his wife left Great 
Yarmouth at the end of June, and immediately proceeded 
to look about them for a suitable house. Their choice 
eventually fell upon number 22 Hereford Square, Brompton, 
which had the misfortune to be only a few doors from 
number 26, where lived Frances Power Cobbe. The rent 
was £6$ per annum. The Borrows entered upon their 
tenancy at the Michaelmas quarter, and were joined by 
Henrietta, who had remained behind at Great Yarmouth 
during the house-hunting. 

Miss Cobbe has given in her Autobiography a very 
unlovely picture of George Borrow during the period of his 
residence in Hereford Square. No woman, except his 
relatives and dependants, will tolerate egoism in a man. 
Borrow was an egoist. If not permitted to lead the 
conversation, he frequently wrapped himself in a gloomy 
silence and waited for an opportunity to discomfit the 
usurper of the place he seemed to consider his own. 
Among his papers were found after his death a large 
number of letters from poor men whom Borrow had 
assisted. His friend the Rev. Francis Cunningham once 
wrote to him a letter protesting against his assisting 



xxviii] MISS COBBE'S FRANKNESS 445 

Nonconformist schools. He gave to Church and Chapel 
alike. This disproves misanthropy, and leaves egoism as 
the only explanation of his occasional lapses into bitterness 
or rudeness. When in happy vein, however, " his conversa- 
tion . . . was unlike that of any other man ; whether he 
told a long story or only commented on some ordinary 
topic, he was always quaint, often humorous." 1 

Miss Cobbe would not humour an egoist, because 
constitutionally women, especially clever women, dislike 
them, unless they wish to marry them. When she heard 
it said, as it very frequently was said, that Borrow was a 
gypsy by blood, she caustically remarked that if he were not 
he " ought to have been." Miss Cobbe had living with her 
a Miss Lloyd who, " amused by his quaint stories and his (real 
or sham) enthusiasm for Wales, . . . cultivated his acquaint- 
ance. I," continued Miss Cobbe frankly, "never liked 
him, thinking him more or less of a hypocrite." 2 

On one occasion Borrow had accepted an invitation from 
Miss Cobbe to meet some friends, but subsequently withdrew 
his acceptance " on finding that Dr Martineau was to be of 
the party . . . nor did he ever after attend our little assem- 
blies without first ascertaining that Dr Martineau would not 
be present ! " This she explained by the assertion that Dr 
Martineau had " horsed " Borrow when he was punished 
for running away from school at Norwich. It appeared 
" irresistibly comic " to her mind. 

There is an amusing account given by Miss Cobbe of 
how she worsted Borrow, which is certainly extremely 
flattering to her accomplishments. Once when talking 
with him she happened to say 

"something about the imperfect education of women, 
and he said it was right they should be ignorant, and that 
no man could endure a clever wife. I laughed at him 
openly," she continues, " and told him some men knew 
better. What did he think of the Brownings ? ' Oh, he 

1 Mr. A. Egmont Hake in The Athenaum, 13th Aug. 18S1. 
a The Life of Frances Power Cobbe, by Herself, 1894. 



446 LIFE IN LONDON [i860 

had heard the name ; he did not know anything of them. 
Since Scott, he read no modern writer ; Scott was greater 
than Homer! What he liked were curious, old, erudite 
books about mediaeval and northern things.' I said I knew 
little of such literature, and preferred the writers of our 
own age, but indeed I was no great student at all. There- 
upon he evidently wanted to astonish me ; and, talking of 
Ireland, said, 'Ah, yes; a most curious, mixed race. 
First there were the Firbolgs, — the old enchanters, who 
raised mists.' . . . ' Don't you think, Mr Borrow,' I 
asked, 'it was the Tuatha-de-Danaan who did that? 
Keatinge expressly says that they conquered the Fir- 
bolgs by that means.' (Mr B. somewhat out of counten- 
ance), ' Oh ! Aye ! Keatinge is the authority ; a most 
extraordinary writer.' ' Well, I should call him the 
Geoffrey of Monmouth of Ireland.' (Mr B. changing the 
venue), ' I delight in Norse-stories ; they are far grander 
than the Greek. There is the story of Olaf the Saint of 
Norway. Can anything be grander? What a noble 
character ! ' ' But,' I said, ' what do you think of his 
putting all those poor Druids on the Skerry of Shrieks, and 
leaving them to be drowned by the tide ? ' (Thereupon Mr 
B. looked at me askant out of his gipsy eyes, as if he thought 
me an example of the evils of female education ! ) ' Well ! 
Well ! I forgot about the Skerry of Shrieks. Then there 
is the story of Beowulf the Saxon going out to sea in his 
burning ship to die.' ' Oh, Mr Borrow! that isn't a Saxon 
story at all. It is in the Heimskringla ! It is told 
of Hakon of Norway.' Then, I asked him about the gipsies 
and their language, and if they were certainly Aryans ? He 
didn't know (or pretended not to know) what Aryans 
were ; and altogether displayed a miraculous mixture of 
odd knowledge and more odd ignorance. Whether the 
latter were real or assumed I know not ! " x 

These were some of the neighbourly little pleasantries 
indulged in by Miss Cobbe, regarding a man who was a 
frequent guest at her house. 

" His has indeed been a fantastic fate ! " writes Mr 
Theodore Watts-Dunton. " When the shortcomings of any 
illustrious man save Borrow are under discussion, ' les de'fauts 
de ses qualites ' is the criticism — wise as charitable — which 

1 The Life of Frances Power Cobbc, by Herself, 1894. 



xxvm.] A VEIN OF HUMOUR 447 

they evoke. Yes, each one is allowed to have his 
angularities save Borrow. Each one is allowed to show 
his own pet unpleasant facets of character now and then — 
allowed to show them as inevitable foils to the pleasant 
ones — save Borrow. His weaknesses no one ever condones. 
During his lifetime his faults were for ever chafing and 
irritating his acquaintances, and now that he and they are 
dead, these faults of his seem to be chafing and irritating 
people of another generation. A fantastic fate, I say, for 
him who was so interesting to some of us ! " 1 

On occasion Borrow could be inexcusably rude, as he 
was to a member of the Russian Embassy who one day 
called at Hereford Square for a copy of Targutn for the 
Czar, when he told him that his Imperial master could fetch 
it himself. Again, no one can defend him for affronting the 
" very distinguished scholar " with whom he happened to 
disagree, by thundering out, " Sir, you're a fool ! " Such 
lapses are deplorable ; but why should we view them in a 
different light from those of Dr Johnson ? 

What would have been regarded in another distin- 
guished man as a pleasant vein of humour was in Borrow's 
case looked upon as evidence of his unveracity. A 
contemporary tells how, on one occasion, he went with 
him into " a tavern " for a pint of ale, when Borrow 
pointed out 

" a yokel at the far end of the apartment. The foolish 
bumpkin was slumbering. Borrow in a stage whisper, 
gravely assured me that the man was a murderer, and 
confided to me with all the emphasis of honest conviction 
the scene and details of his crime. Subsequently I 
ascertained that the elaborate incidents and fine touches of 
local colour were but the coruscations of a too vivid 
imagination, and that the villain of the ale-house on the 
common was as innocent as the author of The Romany 
Rye." 2 

1 " In Defence of Borrow," prefixed to The Romany Rye. Ward, 
Locke & Co. 

2 Vestiges of Borrow ; Some Personal Reminiscences. The Globe, 
2 1 st July 1896. 



448 LIFE IN LONDON [I860 

If Borrow had been called upon to explain this little 
pleasantry he would in all probability have replied in the 
words of Mr Petulengro, that he had told his acquaintance 
" things . . . which are not exactly true, simply to make 
a fool of you, brother." 

It is strange how those among his contemporaries who 
disliked him, denied Borrow the indulgence that is 
almost invariably accorded to genius. Those who were 
not for him were bitterly against him. In their eyes he 
was either outrageously uncivil or insultingly rude. Dr 
Hake, although a close friend, saw Borrow's dominant 
weakness, his love of the outward evidences of fame. Dr 
Hake's impartiality gives greater weight to his testimony 
when he tells of Borrow's first meeting with Dr Robert 
Latham, the ethnologist, philologist and grammarian. 
Latham much wanted to meet Borrow, and promised Dr 
Hake to be on his best behaviour. He was accordingly 
invited to dinner with Borrow. Latham as usual began 
to show off his knowledge. He became aggressive, 
and finally very excited ; but throughout the meal 
Borrow showed the utmost patience and courtesy, much 
to his host's relief. When he subsequently encountered 
Latham in the street he always stopped " to say a kind 
word, seeing his forlorn condition." 

Dr Hake had settled at Coombe End, Roehampton, 
and now that the Borrows were in London, the two 
families renewed their old friendship. Borrow would 
walk over to Coombe End, and on arriving at the gate 
would call out, "Are you alone?" If there were other 
callers he would pass by, if not he would enter and 
frequently persuade Dr Hake, and perhaps his sons, to 
accompany him for a walk. 

" There was something not easily forgotten," writes 

Mr A. Egmont Hake, " in the manner in which he would 

unexpectedly come to our gates, singing some gypsy song, 

and as suddenly depart." l They had many pleasant tramps 

1 The Athencewn, 13th August 1881. 



xxvm.] A PLEASANT TRIO 449 

together, mostly in Richmond Park, where Borrow appeared 
to know every tree and showed himself very learned in 
deer. He was 

" always saying something in his loud, self-asserting voice ; 
sometimes stopping suddenly, drawing his huge stature 
erect, and changing the keen and haughty expression of 
his face into the rapt and half fatuous look of the oracle, 
he would without preface recite some long fragment from 
Welsh or Scandinavian bards, his hands hanging from his 
chest and flapping in symphony. Then he would push on 
again, and as suddenly stop, arrested by the beautiful 
scenery, and exclam, ' Ah ! this is England, as the 
Pretender said when he again looked on his fatherland.' 
Then on reaching any town, he would be sure to spy out 
some lurking gypsy, whom no one but himself would have 
known from a common horse-dealer. A conversation in 
Romany would ensue, a shilling would change hands, two 
fingers would be pointed at the gypsy, and the interview 
would be at an end." 1 

One day he asked Dr Hake's youngest boy if he 
knew how to fight a man bigger than himself, and on 
being told that he didn't, advised him to " accept his 
challenge, and tell him to take off his coat, and while he 
was doing it knock him down and then run for your life." 2 

Once Borrow arrived at Dr Hake's house to find 
another caller in the person of Mr Theodore Watts- 
Dunton, and they " went through a pleasant trio, in which 
Borrow, as was his wont, took the first fiddle. . . . Borrow 
made himself agreeable to Watts [-Dunton], recited a 
fairy tale in the best style to him, and liked him." 3 
Borrow did not recognise in Mr Watts-Dunton the young- 
man whom he had seen bathing on the beach at Great 
Yarmouth, pleased to be near his hero, but too much 
afraid to venture to address him. Writing of this meeting 
at Coombe End, Mr Watts-Dunton says: "There is however 

1 Mr A. Egmont Hake in Macmillaris Magazine, November 1881. 

2 Mr A. Egmont Hake in The Athenaum, 13th August 1881. 

3 Memoirs of Eighty Years, by Dr Gordon Hake, 1892. 

2 F 



450 LIFE IN LONDON [1861 

no doubt that Borrow would have run away from me had I 
been associated in his mind with the literary calling. But 
at that time I had written nothing at all save poems, and 
a prose story or two of a romantic kind." l Borrow hated 
the literary man, he was at war with the whole genus. 

Mr Watts-Dunton confesses that he made great efforts 
to enlist Borrow's interest. He touched on Bamfylde 
Moore Carew, beer, bruisers, philology, "gentility non- 
sense," the " trumpery great " ; but without success. Borrow 
was obviously suspicious of him. Then with inspiration 
he happened to mention what proved to be a magic name. 

"I tried other subjects in the same direction," Mr 
Watts-Dunton continues, " but with small success, till in 
a lucky moment I bethought myself of Ambrose Gwinett, 
. . . the man who, after having been hanged and gibbeted 
for murdering a traveller with whom he had shared a 
double-bedded room at a seaside inn, revived in the 
night, escaped from the gibbet-irons, went to sea as a 
common sailor, and afterwards met on a British man-of- 
war the very man he had been hanged for murdering. 
The truth was that Gwinett's supposed victim, having 
been attacked on the night in question by a violent 
bleeding of the nose, had risen and left the house for a 
few minutes' walk in the sea-breeze, when the press-gang 
captured him and bore him off to sea, where he had been 
in service ever since. The story is true, and the pamphlet, 
Borrow afterwards told me (I know not on what authority), 
was written by Goldsmith from Gwinett's dictation for a 
platter of cow-heel. 

" To the bewilderment of Dr Hake, I introduced the 
subject of Ambrose Gwinett in the same manner as I 
might have introduced the story of ' Achilles' wrath,' and 
appealed to Dr Hake (who, of course, had never heard of 
the book or the man) as to whether a certain incident in 
the pamphlet had gained or lost by the dramatist who, at 
one of the minor theatres, had many years ago dramatized 
the story. Borrow was caught at last. ' What ? ' said he, 
1 you know that pamphlet about Ambrose Gwinett ? ' 
' Know it ? ' said I, in a hurt tone, as though he had asked 
me if I knew ' Macbeth ' ; ' of course I know Ambrose 

1 The AthencEwn, ioth September 1881. 



THE REV. ANDREW BRANDRAM 

{From an old silhouette in the possession of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society). 



[To face page 450. 



xxvm.] THE STORY OF AMBROSE GWINETT 451 

Gwinett, Mr Borrow, don't you ? ' ' And you know the 
play?' said he. 'Of course I do, Mr Borrow,' I said, in a 
tone that was now a little angry at such an insinuation of 
crass ignorance. ' Why,' said he, ' it's years and years 
since it was acted; I never was much of a theatre man, 
but I did go to see that' ' Well I should rather think 
you did, Mr Borrow,' said I. ' But,' said he, staring hard 
at me, 'you — you were not born ! ' ' And I was not born,' 
said I, ' when the " Agamemnon " was produced, and yet 
one reads the " Agamemnon," Mr Borrow. I have read 
the drama of " Ambrose Gwinett." I have it bound in 
morocco, with some more of Douglas Jerrold's early 
transpontine plays, and some iEschylean dramas by Mr 
Fitzball. J will lend it to you, Mr Borrow, if you like.' 
He was completely conquered, ' Hake ! ' he cried, in a 
loud voice, regardless of my presence, ' Hake ! your friend 
knows everything.' Then he murmured to himself. 
' Wonderful man ! Knows Ambrose Gwinett ! ' 

" It is such delightful reminiscences as these that will 
cause me to have as long as I live a very warm place in 
my heart for the memory of George Borrow." 1 

After this, intercourse proved easy. At Borrow's 
suggestion they walked to the Bald-Faced Stag, in 
Kingston Vale, to inspect Jerry Abershaw's sword. This 
famous old hostelry was a favourite haunt of Borrow's, 
where he would often rest during his walk and drink " a 
cup of ale " (which he would call " swipes," and make a 
wry face as he swallowed) and talk of the daring deeds of 
Jerry the highwayman. 

Many people have testified to the pleasure of being in the 
company of the whimsical, eccentric, humbug-hating Borrow. 

" He was a choice companion on a walk," writes Mr 
A. Egmont Hake, "whether across country or in the 
slums of Houndsditch. His enthusiasm for nature 
was peculiar ; he could draw more poetry from a wide- 
spreading marsh with its straggling rushes than from the 
most beautiful scenery, and would stand and look at it 
with rapture." 2 

1 The Athenaufn, ioth September 1881. 

2 The Athenceum, 13th August 1881. 



452 LIFE IN LONDON [1861 

Since the tour in Wales in 1854, from which he returned 
with the four " Note Books," Borrow had been working 
steadily at Wild Wales. In 1857 the book had been 
announced as " ready for the press " ; but this was 
obviously an anticipation. The manuscript was sub- 
mitted to John Murray early in November 1861. On the 
20th of that month he wrote the following letter, address- 
ing it, not to Borrow, but to his wife : — 

Dear Mrs Borrow,— The MS. of Wild Wales has 
occupied my thoughts almost ever since Friday last. 

I approached this MS. with some diffidence, recol- 
lecting the unsatisfactory results, on the whole, of our last 
publication — Romany Rye. I have read a large part of 
this new work with care and attention, and although it is 
beautifully written and in a style of English undefiled, 
which few writers can surpass, there is yet a want of 
stirring incident in it which makes me fearful as to the 
result of its publication. 

In my hands at least I cannot think it would succeed 
even as well as Romany Rye — and I am fearful of not 
doing justice to it. I do not like to undertake a work 
with the chance of reproach that it may have failed 
through my want of power to promote its circulation, and 
I do wish, for Borrow's own sake, that in this instance he 
would try some other publisher and perhaps some other 
form of publication. 

In my hands I am convinced the work will not 
answer the author's expectations, and I am not prepared 
to take on me this amount of responsibility. 

I will give the best advice I can if called upon, and 
shall be only too glad if I can be useful to Mr Borrow. I 
regret to have to write in this sense, but believe me 
always, Dear Mrs Borrow, 

Your faithful friend, 

John Murray. 

The reply to this letter has not been preserved. It 
would appear that some " stirring incidents " were added, 
among others most probably the account of Borrow 
blessing the Irish reapers, who mistook him for Father 
Toban. This anecdote was one of John Murray's favourite 



xxviil] A FINANCIAL SUCCESS 453 

passages. It is evident that some concession was made 
to induce Murray to change his mind. In any case Wild 
Wales appeared towards the close of 1862 in an edition of 
1000 copies. The publisher's misgivings were not justified, 
as the first edition produced a profit, up to 30th June 1863, 
°f ^53 r > 1 4 s -> which was equally divided between author 
and publisher. The second, and cheap, edition of 3000 
copies lasted for thirteen years, and the deficiency on 
this absorbed the greater part of the publisher's profit. 

In a way it is the most remarkable of Borrow's 
books ; for it shows that he was making a serious 
effort to regain his public. It is an older, wiser and 
chastened Borrow that appears in its pages, striding 
through the land of the bards at six miles an hour, his 
satchel slung over his shoulder, his green umbrella 
grasped in his right hand, shouting the songs of Wales, 
about which he knew more than any man he met. There 
are no gypsies (except towards the end of the book a 
reference to his meeting with Captain Bosvile), no bruisers, 
the pope is scarcely mentioned, and " gentility-nonsense " 
is veiled almost to the point of elimination. It seems 
scarcely conceivable that the hand that had written the 
appendix to The Romany Rye could have so restrained 
itself as to write Wild Wales. Borrow had evidently read 
and carefully digested Whitwell Elwin's friendly strictures 
upon The Romany Rye. Instead of the pope, the gypsies 
and the bruisers of England, there were the vicarage cat, 
the bards and the thousand and one trivial incidents of 
the wayside. There were occasional gleams of the old 
fighting spirit, notably when he characterises sherry, 1 as 

1 " Sherry drinkers, ... I often heard him say in a tone of positive 
loathing, he despised. He had a habit of speaking in a measured 
syllabic manner, if he wished to express dislike or contempt, which 
was certainly very effective. He would say : ' If you want to have 
the Sherry tang, get Madeira (that's a gentleman's wine), and throw 
into it two or three pairs of old boots, and you'll get the taste of the 
pig skins they carry the Sherry about in." — Rev. J. R. P. Berkeley's 
Recollections. The Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp. 



454 LIFE IN LONDON [1862 

" a silly, sickly compound, the use of which will transform 
a nation, however bold and warlike by nature, into a race 
of sketchers, scribblers, and punsters, — in fact, into what 
Englishmen are at the present day." He has created the 
atmosphere of Wales as he did that of the gypsy encamp- 
ment. He shows the jealous way in which the Welsh 
cling to their language, and their suspicion of the Saesneg, 
or Saxon. Above all, he shows how national are the 
Welsh poets, belonging not to the cultured few ; but to 
the labouring man as much as to the landed proprietor. 
Borrow earned the respect of the people, not only because 
he knew their language ; but on account of his profound 
knowledge of their literature, their history, and their 
traditions. No one could escape him, he accosted every 
soul he met, and evinced a desire for information as to 
place-names that instantly arrested their attention. 

The most curious thing about Wild Wales is the 
omission of all mention of the Welsh Gypsies, who, with 
those of Hungary, share the distinction of being the 
aristocrats of their race. Several explanations have been 
suggested to account for the curious circumstance. Had 
Borrow's knowledge of Welsh Romany been scanty, he 
could very soon have improved it. The presence of his 
wife and step-daughter was no hindrance ; for, as a matter 
of fact, they were very little with him, even when they and 
Borrow were staying at Llangollen ; but during the long 
tours they were many miles away. In all probability the 
Welsh Gypsies were sacrificed to British prejudice, much 
as were pugilism and the baiting of the pope. 

In spite of its simple charm and convincing atmosphere, 
Wild Wales did not please the critics. Those who noticed 
it (and there were many who did not) either questioned its 
genuineness, or found it crowded with triviality and self- 
glorification. It was full of the superfluous, the superfluous 
repeated, and above all it was too long (some 250,000 
words). The Spectator notice was an exception ; it did 
credit to the critical faculty of the man who wrote it. He 



xxvm.] JUSTICE TO THE WELSH BARDS 455 

declined "to boggle and wrangle over minor defects in 
what is intrinsically good," and praised Wild Wales as 
"the first really clever book ... in which an honest 
attempt is made to do justice to Welsh literature." 

Borrow had much time upon his hands in London, 
which he occupied largely in walking. He visited the 
Metropolitan Gypsyries at Wandsworth, "the Potteries," 
and " the Mounts," as described in Romano Lavo-Lil. 
Sometimes he would be present at some sporting event, 
such as the race between the Indian Deerfoot and 
Jackson, styled the American Deer — tame sport in com- 
parison with the "mills" of his boyhood. He did very 
little writing, and from 1862, when Wild Wales appeared, 
until he published The Romano Lavo-Lil in 1874, his 
literary output consisted of only some translations contri- 
buted to Once a Week (January 1862 to December 1863). 

In 1865 he was to lose his step-daughter, who married 
a William MacOubrey, M.D., described in the marriage 
register as a physician of Sloane Street, London, and 
subsequently upon his tombstone as a barrister. In the 
July of 1866 Borrow and his wife went to Belfast on a 
visit to the newly married pair. From Belfast Borrow 
took another trip into Scotland, crossing over to Stranraer. 
From there he proceeded to Glen Luce and subsequently 
to Newton Stewart, Castle Douglas, Dumfries, Ecclefechan, 
Gretna Green, Carlisle, Langholm, Hawick, Jedburgh, 
Yetholm (where he saw Esther Blyth of Kirk Yetholm), 
Kelso, Abbotsford, Melrose, Berwick, Edinburgh, Glasgow, 
and so back to Belfast, having been absent for nearly 
four weeks. 

Mrs Borrow's health had been the cause of the family 
leaving Oulton for Great Yarmouth, and about the time 
of the Irish visit it seems to have become worse. When 
Borrow was away upon his excursion he received a letter 
at Carlisle in which his wife informed him that she was 
not so well; but urging him not to return if he were 
enjoying his trip and it were benefiting his health. 



456 LIFE IN LONDON [1867 

In the autumn of the following year (1867) they were 
at Bognor, Mrs Borrow taking the sea air, her husband 
tramping about the country and penetrating into the 
New Forest. On their return to town Mrs Borrow 
appears to have become worse. There was much corre- 
spondence to be attended to with regard to the Oulton 
Estate, and she had to go down to Suffolk to give her 
personal attention to certain important details. Miss 
Cobbe throws a little light on the period in a letter to 
a friend, in which she says : 

" Mr Borrow says his wife is very ill and anxious to 
keep the peace with C. (a litigious neighbour). Poor old 
B. was very sad at first, but I cheered him up and sent 
him off quite brisk last night. He talked all about the 
Fathers again, arguing that their quotations went to 
prove that it was not our gospels they had in their hands. 
I knew most of it before, but it was admirably done. I 
talked a little theology to him in a serious way (finding 
him talk of his ' horrors ') and he abounded in my sense 
of the non-existence of Hell, and of the presence and 
action on the soul of a Spirit, rewarding and punishing. 
He would not say ' God ' ; but repeated over and over 
again that he spoke not from books but from his own 
personal experience." 1 

On 24th January (1869) Mrs Borrow was taken 
suddenly ill and the family doctor being out of town, 
Borrow sent for Dr W. S. Playfair of 5 Curzon Street. 
A letter from Dr Playfair, 25th January, to the family 
doctor is the only coherent testimony in existence as to 
what was actually the matter with Mrs Borrow. It runs : 

" I found great difficulty in making out the case 
exactly," he writes, "since Mr Borrow himself was so 
agitated that I could get no very clear account of it. I 
could detect no marked organic affection about the heart 
or lungs, of which she chiefly complained. It seemed to 
me to be either a very aggravated form of hysteria, or, 
what appears more likely, some more serious mental 

1 Life of Frances Power Cobbe, by Herself, 1894. 



xxviii.] DEATH OF MRS BORROW 457 

affection. In any case, the chief requisite seemed very 
careful and intelligent nursing or management, and I 
doubt very much, from what I saw, whether she gets that 
with her present surroundings. If it is really the more 
serious mental affection, I should fancy that the sooner 
means are taken to have her properly taken care of, the 
better." 

Dr Playfair saw in Borrow's highly nervous excitable 
nature, if not the cause of his wife's breakdown, at least 
an obstacle to her recovery, and was of opinion that 
Mrs Borrow's disorder had been greatly aggravated by 
her husband's presence. 

Mrs Borrow never rallied from the attack, and on the 
30th she died of " valvular disease of the heart and 
dropsy," being then in her seventy-seventh year. On 4th 
February she was buried in Brompton Cemetery, and the 
lonely man, her husband, returned to Hereford Square. 
The grave bears the inscription, " To the Beloved Memory 
of My Mother, Mary Borrow, who fell asleep in Jesus, 
30th January 1869." It is strange that this should be in 
Henrietta's and not Borrow's name. 

Mrs Borrow evidently made over her property to 
her husband during her lifetime, as there is no will in 
existence, and no application appears to have been 
made either by Borrow or anyone else for letters of 
administration. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

JANUARY 1869— 1 88 1 

[~^HE death of his wife was a last blow to Borrow, and 
-*• he soon retired from the world. At first he appears 
to have sought consolation in books, to judge from the 
number of purchases he made about this time ; but it was, 
apparently, with pitiably unsuccessful results. In a letter 
to a friend Miss Cobbe gives a picture in his lonliness : 

" Poor old Borrow is in a sad state," she wrote. " I 
hope he is starting in a day or two for Scotland. I sent 
C. with a note begging him to come and eat the Welsh 
mutton you sent me to-day, and he sent back word, ' Yes.' 
Then, an hour afterwards, he arrived, and in a most 
agitated manner said he had come to say ' he would 
rather not. He would not trouble anyone with his 
sorrows.' I made him sit down, and talked as gently to 
him as possible, saying : ' It won't be a trouble Mr 
Borrow, it will be a pleasure to me.' But it was all of no 
use. He was so cross so rude, I had the greatest difficulty 
in talking to him. I asked about his servant, and he said 
I could not help him. I asked him about Bowring, and he 
said : ' Don't speak of it.' (It was some dispute with Sir 
John Bowring, who was an acquaintance of mine, and with 
whom I offered to mediate.) ' I asked him would he look 
at the photos of the Siamese,' and he said : ' Don't show 
them to me ! ' So, in despair, as he sat silent, I told him I 
had been at a pleasant dinner-party the night before, and 

had met Mr L , who told me of certain curious books 

of mediaeval history. ' Did he know them ? ' ' No, and 

he dare said Mr L did not, either ! Who was Mr 

L ? ' I described that obscure individual, (one of the 



xxix.] "HANS BREITMANN " 459 

foremost writers of the day), and added that he was 
immensely liked by everybody. Whereupon Borrow 
repeated at least twelve times, ' Immensely liked ! As if 
a man could be immensely liked ! ' quite insultingly. To 
make a diversion (I was very patient with him as he was 
in trouble), • I said I had just come home from the Lyell's 

and had heard ' . . . But there was no time to say what 

I had heard ! Mr Borrow asked : ' Is that old Lyle I met 
here once, the man who stands at the door (of some den or 
other) and bets?' I explained who Sir Charles was, l (of 
course he knew very well), but he went on and on, till I 
said gravely: 'I don't think you will meet those sort of 
people here, Mr Borrow. We don't associate with black- 
legs, exactly.'" 2 

In the Autumn of 1870 Borrow became acquainted with 
Charles G. Leland (" Hans Breitmann ") as the result of 
receiving from him the following letter : — 

Brighton, 24 th October 1870. 

Dear Sir, — During the eighteen months that I have 
been in England, my efforts to find some mutual friend 
who would introduce me to you have been quite in vain. 
As the author of two or three works which have been 
kindly received in England, I have made the acquaintance 
of many literary men and enjoyed much hospitality ; but 
I assure you very sincerely that my inability to find you 
out or get at you has been a source of great annoyance to 
me. As you never published a book which I have not 
read through five times — excepting The Bible in Spain and 
Wild Wales, which I have only read once — you will 
perfectly understand why I should be so desirous of 
meeting you. 

As you have very possibly never heard of me before, 
I would state that I wrote a collection of Ballads satirising 
Germany and the Germans under the title of Hans 
Breitmann. 

I never before in my life solicited the favour of any 
man's acquaintance, except through the regular medium 
of an introduction. If my request to be allowed the 

1 The Geologist, 1797-1875. 

2 The Life of Frances Power Cobbc, by Herself, 1894. 



460 A LONELY OLD AGE [1870 

favour of meeting and seeing you does not seem too 
outre", I would be to glad to go to London, or wherever 
you may be, if it can be done without causing you any 
inconvenience, and if I should not be regarded as an 
intruder. I am an American, and among us such requests 
are parfaitment (sic) en i^gle. 

I am, . . . 

Charles G. Leland. 



Borrow replied on 2nd Nov. : 

Sir, 

I have received your letter and am gratified by 
the desire you express to make my acquaintance. 

Whenever you please to come I shall be happy to 
see you. 

Truly yours, 

George Borrow. 1 

The meeting unquestionably took place at Hereford 
Square, and Leland found Borrow " a tall, large, fine- 
looking man who must have been handsome in his 
youth." 2 The result of the interview was that Leland sent 
to Borrow a copy of his Ballads and also The Music Lesson 
of Confucius, then about to appear. At the same time 
he wrote to Borrow drawing his attention to one of the 
ballads written in German Romany jib, and enquiring 
if it were worth anything. Whilst deprecating his 
" impudence " in writing a Romany gili and telling, as a 
pupil might a master, of his interest in and his association 
with the gypsies, he continues : " My dear Mr Borrow, for 
all this you are entirely responsible. More than twenty 
years ago your books had an incredible influence on me, 
and now you see the results." After telling him that he 
can never thank him sufficiently for the instructions he 
has given in The Romany Rye as to how to take care 
of a horse on a thirty-mile ride, he concludes — " With 

1 Charles Godfrey Leland, by E. R. Pennell, 1908. 

2 Memoirs, by C. G. Leland, 1893. 



xxix.] THE RIVAL LAV-ENGROS 461 

apologies for the careless tone of this letter, and with 
sincere thanks for your kindness in permitting me to call 
on you and for your courteous note, — I am your sincere 
admirer." 

The account that Leland gives of this episode in his 
Memoirs is puzzling and contradictory in the light of his 
first letter. He writes : 

" There was another hard old character with whom 
I became acquainted in those days, and one who, though 
not a Carlyle, still, like him, exercised in a peculiar way 
a great influence on English literature. This was George 
Borrow. I was in the habit of reading a great deal in 
the British Museum, where he also came, and there I was 
introduced to him. 1 [Leland seems to be in error here ; see 
ante, page 460.] He was busy with a venerable-looking 
volume in old Irish, and made the remark to me that he did 
not believe there was a man living who could read old Irish 
with ease (which I now observe to myself was ' fished ' out 
of Sir W. Betham). We discussed several Gypsy words 
and phrases. I met him in the same place several 
times." 2 

Leland states that he sent a note to Borrow, care of 
John Murray, asking permission to dedicate to him his 
forthcoming book, The English Gypsies and Their 
Language; but received no reply, although Murray 
assured him that the letter had been received by Borrow. 
" He received my note on the Saturday," Leland writes — - 
" never answered it — and on Monday morning advertised in 
all the journals his own forthcoming work on the same 
subject" 3 Had Borrow asked him to delay publishing 
his own book, Leland says he would have done so, " for 
I had so great a respect for the Nestor of Gypsyism, that 

1 In her biography of Leland, Mrs Pennell states that an American 
woman, a Mrs Lewis ("Estelle") introduced Leland to Borrow at the 
British Museum and that they talked Gypsy. " I hear he expressed 
himself as greatly pleased with me," was Leland's comment. The 
correspondence clearly shows that Leland called on Borrow. 

2 Memoirs of C. G. Leland, 1893. 3 Memoirs of C. G. Leland, 1893. 



462 A LONELY OLD AGE [1874 

I would have been very glad to have gratified him with 
such a small sacrifice." 1 

However Borrow may have heard that Leland had in 
preparation a book on the English Gypsies, he seemed to 
feel that it was a trespass upon ground that was peculiarly 
his own. Having revised and prepared for the press the 
new edition of the Gypsy St Luke for the Bible Society 
(published December 1872), and the one-volume editions 
of Lavengro and The Romany Rye, he set to work to 
forestall Leland with his own Romano Lavo-Lil. 

In spite of his haste, however, Borrow was beaten in 
the race, and Leland got his volume out first. When the 
Romano Lavo-LW 1 appeared in March 1874, Borrow found 
what, in all probability he had not dreamed of, that the 
thirty-three years intervening between its publication 
and that of The Zincali, had changed the whole literary 
world as regards "things of Egypt." In 1841 Borrow 
had produced a unique book, such as only one man in 
England could have written, and that man himself 3 ; 

1 Leland's annoyance with Borrow did not prevent him paying 
to his memory the following tribute : — 

"What I admire in Borrow to such a degree that before it his 
faults or failings seem very trifling, is his absolutely vigorous, 
marvellously varied originality, based on direct familiarity with 
Nature, but guided and cultured by the study of natural, simple 
writers, such as Defoe and Smollett. I think that the 'interest' in, 
or rather sympathy for gypsies, in his case as in mine, came not from 
their being curious or dramatic beings, but because they are so much 
a part of free life, of out-of-doors Nature ; so associated with sheltered 
nooks among rocks and trees, the hedgerow and birds, river-sides, and 
wild roads. Borrow's heart was large and true as regarded English 
rural life ; there was a place in it for everything which was of the 
open air and freshly beautiful." — Memoirs of C. G. Leland, 1893. 

2 Romano Lavo-Lil : Word-Book of the Romany, or English 
Gypsy Language. With Specimens of Gypsy Poetry, and an 
Account of Certain Gypsyries or Places Inhabited by Them, and of 
Various Things Relating to Gypsy Life in England. 

3 "There were not two educated men in England who possessed 
the slightest knowledge of Romany." — F. H. Groome in Academy, 
13th June 1874. 



xxix.] A SPENT FORCE 463 

but in 1874 he found himself not only out of date, but 
out-classed. 

The title very thoroughly explains the scope of the 
work. The Vocabulary had existed in manuscript for 
many years. For some reason, difficult to explain, 
Borrow had omitted from this Vocabulary a number of 
the gypsy words that appeared in Lavengro and The 
Romany Rye. In spite of this " Mr Borrow's present 
vocabulary makes a goodly show," wrote F. H. Groome, 
". . . containing no fewer than fourteen hundred words, 
of which about fifty will be entirely new to those who only 
know Romany in books." 1 

After praising the Gypsy songs as the best portion of 
the book, Groome proceeds : 

" Of his prose I cannot say so much. It is the 
Romany of the study rather than of the tents [!] Mr 
Borrow has attempted to rehabilitate English Romany by 
enduing it with forms and inflections, of which some are 
still rarely to be heard, some extinct, and others absolutely 
incorrect ; while Mr Leland has been content to give it as 
it really is. Of the two methods I cannot doubt that 
most readers will agree with me in thinking that Mr 
Leland's is the more satisfactory." 2 

The Athenceum sternly rebuked Borrow for seeming 
" to make the mistake of confounding the amount of 
Rommanis which he has collected in this book with the 
actual extent of the language itself." The reviewer pays 
a somewhat grudging tribute to other portions of the 
book, the accounts of the Gypsyries and the biographical 
particulars of the Romany worthies, but the work suffers 
by comparison with those of Paspati and Leland. He 
acknowledges that Borrow was one of the pioneers 
of those who gave accounts of the Gypsies in Eng- 
lish, who gave to many their present taste for Gypsy 
matters, 

1 F. H. Groome in Academy, 13th June 1874. 

2 Ibid. 



464 A LONELY OLD AGE [1874 

" but," he proceeds, " we cannot allow merely senti- 
mental considerations to prevent us from telling the 
honest truth. The fact is that the Romano Lavo-Lil is 
nothing more than a rechauffe of the materials collected by 
Mr Borrow at an early stage of his investigations, and nearly 
every word and every phrase may be found in one form or 
another in his earlier works. Whether or not Mr Borrow 
has in the course of his long experience become the deep 
Gypsy which he has always been supposed to be, we 
cannot say ; but it is certain that his present book 
contains little more than he gave to the public forty years 
ago, and does not by any means represent the present 
state of knowledge on the subject. But at the present 
day, when comparative philology has made such strides, 
and when want of accurate scholarship is as little tolerated 
in strange and remote languages as in classical literature, 
the Romano Lavo-Lil is, to speak mildly, an anachronism." 

This notice, if Borrow read it, must have been very 
bitter to him. All the loyalty to, and enthusiasm for, 
Borrow cannot disguise the fact that his work, as far as 
the Gypsies were concerned, was finished. He had first 
explored the path, but others had followed and levelled it 
into a thoroughfare, and Borrow found his facts and 
theories obsolete — a humiliating discovery to a man so 
shy, so proud, and so sensitive. 

The Romano Lavo-Lil was Borrow's swan song. He 
lived for another seven years ; but as far as the world was 
concerned he was dead. In an obituary notice of Robert 
Latham, Mr Watts-Dunton tells a story that emphasizes 
how thoroughly his existence had been forgotten. Atone 
of Mrs Procter's " at homes " he was talking of Latham 
and Borrow, but when he happened to mention that both 
men were still alive, that is in the early Seventies, and 
that quite recently he had been in the company of 
each on separate occasions, he found that he had lost 
caste in the eyes of his hearers for talking about men as 
alive "who were well known to have been dead years 
ago." 1 

1 The Athenceum, 17th March 1888. 



xxix.] THE CALM COLOSSUS 465 

There is an interesting picture of Borrow as he appeared 
in the Seventies, given by F. H. Groome, who writes : 



" The first time I ever saw him was at Ascot, the 
Wednesday evening of the Cup week in, I think, the year 
1872. I was stopping at a wayside inn, half-a-mile on the 
Windsor road, just opposite which inn there was a great 
encampment of Gypsies. One of their lads had on the 
Tuesday affronted a soldier ; so two or three hundred 
redcoats came over from Windsor, intending to wreck the 
camp. There was a babel of cursing and screaming, 
much brandishing of belts and tent-rods, when suddenly 
an arbiter appeared, a white-haired, brown-eyed, calm 
Colossus, speaking Romany fluently, and drinking deep 
draughts of ale — in a quarter of an hour Tommy Atkins 
and Anselo Stanley were sworn friends over a loving- 
quart. " Mr Burroughs," said one of the Gypsies (it is the 
name by which Gypsies still speak of him), and I knew 
that at last I had met him whom of all men I most wished 
to meet. Matty Cooper, the ' celebrated Windsor Frog ' 
{vide Leland), presented me as ' a young gentleman, Rya, 
a scholard from Oxford ' ; and " H'm,' quoth Colossus, ' a 
good many fools come from Oxford.' It was a bad 
beginning, but it ended well, by his asking me to walk 
with him to the station, and on the way inviting me to 
call on him in London. I did so, but not until nearly a 
twelve-month afterwards, when I found him in Hereford 
Square, and when he set strong ale before me, as again on 
the occasion of my third and last meeting with him in the 
tent of our common acquaintance, Shadrach Heme, at the 
Potteries, Notting Hill. Both these times we had much 
talk together, but I remember only that it was partly 
about East Anglia, and more about ' things of Egypt.' 
Conversations twenty years old are easy to imagine, hard 
to reproduce. . . . Probably Borrow asked me the Romany 
for ' frying-pan,' and I modestly answered, ' Either 
maasalli or tasseromengrV (this is password No. 1), and 
then I may have asked him the Romany for ' brick,' to 
which he will have answered, that ' there is no such word ' 
(this is No. 2). But one thing I do remember, that he 
was frank and kindly, interesting and interested ; I was 
only a lad, and he was verging on seventy. I could tell 
him about a few ' travellers ' whom he had not recently 

2 G 



466 A LONELY OLD AGE [1874 

seen — Charlie Pinfold, the hoary polygamist, Plato and 
Mantis Buckland, Cinderella Petulengro, and Old Tom 
Oliver (' Ha ! so he has seen Tom Oliver,' I seem to 
remember that)." x 

There was nothing now to keep Borrow in London. 
Nobody wanted to read his books, other stars had risen in 
the East. His publisher had exclaimed with energy, as 
Borrow himself would relate, " I want to meet with good 
writers, but there are none to be had : I want a man who 
can write like Ecclesiastes." There is something tragic in 
the account that Mr Watts-Dunton gives of his last 
encounter with Borrow : 

" The last time I ever saw him," he writes, " was shortly 
before he left London to live in the country. It was, I 
remember well, on Waterloo Bridge, where I had stopped 
to gaze at a sunset of singular and striking splendour, 
whose gorgeous clouds and ruddy mists were reeling and 
boiling over the West-End. Borrow came up and stood 
leaning over the parapet, entranced by the sight, as well 
he might be. Like most people born in flat districts, he 
had a passion for sunsets. Turner could not have painted 
that one, I think, and certainly my pen could not describe 
it. ... I never saw such a sunset before or since, not 
even on Waterloo Bridge ; and from its association with 
4 the last of Borrow,' I shall never forget it." 2 

In 1874 Borrow withdrew to Oulton, there to end his 
lonely life, his spirit seeming to enjoy the dreary solitude 
of the Cottage, with its mournful surroundings. His step- 
daughter, the Henrietta of old, remained in London with 
her husband, and Borrow's loneliness was complete. 
Sometimes he was to be seen stalking along the highways at 
a great pace, wearing a broad brimmed hat and a Spanish 
cloak, a tragic figure of solitude and despair, speaking to 
no one, no one daring to speak to him, who locally was 
considered as " a funny tempered man." 

In a fragment of a letter from Edward FitzGerald to 

1 The Bookman, February 1893. 
3 The AthencEuvi, 10th Sept. 1881. 



xxix.] EDWARD FITZGERALD'S LETTERS 467 

W. B. Donne (June 1874), there is an interesting reference 
to Borrow : — 

" Wait ! " he writes. " I have one little thing to tell 
you, which, little as it is, is worth all the rest, if you don't 
know already. 

" Borrow — has got back to his own Oulton Lodge. My 
Nephew, Edmund Kerrich, now Adjutant to some Volunteer 
Battalion, wants a house near, not in, Lowestoft : and got 
some Agent to apply for Borrow's — who sent word that he 
is himself there — an old Man — wanting Retirement, etc. 
This was the account Edmund got. 

" I saw in some Athenaeum a somewhat contemptuous 
notice of G. B.'s ' Rommany Lil ' or whatever the name is. 
I can easily understand that B. should not meddle with 
science of any sort ; but some years ago he would not have 
liked to be told so, however Old Age may have cooled him 
now." x 



Borrow sent a message to FitzGerald through Edmund 
Kerrich of Geldeston, asking him to visit Oulton Cottage. 
The reply shows all the sweetness of the writer's nature : — 

Little Grange, Woodbridge, 
Jan. 10/75. 

DEAR BORROW, — My nephew Kerrich told me of a 
very kind invitation that you sent to me, through him, 
some while ago. I think the more of it because I imagine, 
from what I have heard, that you have slunk away from 
human company as much — as I have ! For the last fifteen 
years I have not visited any one of my very oldest friends, 
except the daughters of my old [? friend] George Crabbe, 
and Donne — once only, and for half a day, just to assure 
myself by my own eyes how he was after the severe 
illness he had last year, and which he never will quite 
recover from, I think ; though he looked and moved better 
than I expected. 

Well — to tell you all about why I have thus fallen 

1 Willia?n Bodham Donne and His Friends. Edited by Catherine 
13. Johnson, 1905. 



468 A LONELY OLD AGE [1875 

from my company would be a tedious thing, and all about 
one's self too — whom, Montaigne says, one never talks 
about without detriment to the person talked about. 
Suffice to say, 'so it is ' ; and one's friends, however kind 
and ' loyal ' (as the phrase goes), do manage to exist and 
enjoy themselves pretty reasonably without one. 

So with me. And is it not much the same with you 
also ? Are you not glad now to be mainly alone, and 
find company a heavier burden than the grasshopper ? If 
one ever had this solitary habit, it is not likely to alter for 
the better as one grows older — as one grows old. I like 
to think over my old friends. There they are, lingering as 
ineffaceable portraits — done in the prime of life — in my 
memory. Perhaps we should not like one another so well 
after a fifteen-years separation, when all of us change and 
most of us for the worse. I do not say that would be your 
case ; but you must, at any rate, be less inclined to disturb 
the settled repose into which you, I suppose, have fallen. 
I remember first seeing you at Oulton, some twenty-five 
years ago ; then at Donne's in London ; then at my own 
happy home in Regent's Park ; then ditto at Gorleston — 
after which, I have seen nobody, except the nephews and 
nieces left me by my good sister Kerrich. 

So shall things rest ? I could not go to you, after 
refusing all this while to go to older — if not better — friends, 
fellow Collegians, fellow schoolfellows ; and yet will you 
still believe me (as I hope they do) 

Yours and theirs sincerely, 

Edward FitzGerald. 

Borrow was still a remarkably robust man. Mr Watts- 
Dunton tells how, 

" At seventy years of age, after breakfasting at eight 
o'clock in Hereford Square, he would walk to Putney, 
meet one or more of us at Roehampton, roam about 
Wimbledon and Richmond Park with us, bathe in the 
Fen Ponds with a north-east wind cutting across the icy 
water like a razor, run about the grass afterwards like a 
boy to shake off some of the water-drops, stride about the 
park for hours, and then, after fasting for twelve hours, eat 
a dinner at Roehampton that would have done Sir Walter 
Scott's eyes good to see. Finally, he would walk back to 



xxix.] CLOSING YEARS 469 

Hereford Square, getting home late at night. And if the 
physique of the man was bracing, his conversation, unless 
he happened to be suffering from one of his occasional fits 
of depression, was still more so. Its freshness, raciness 
and eccentric whim no pen could describe. There is a 
kind of humour the delight of which is that while you 
smile at the pictures it draws, you smile quite as much or 
more to think that there is a mind so whimsical, crotchetty, 
and odd as to draw them. This was the humour of 
Borrow." x 

He was seventy years of age when, one March day 
during a bitterly-cold east wind, he stripped and plunged 
into one of the Fen Ponds in Richmond Park, which was 
covered with ice, and dived and swam under the water 
for a time, reappearing some distance from the spot 
where he had entered the water. 2 

The remaining years of Borrow's life were spent in 
Suffolk. He would frequently go to Norwich, however ; 
for the old city seemed to draw him irresistibly from his 
hermitage. He would take a lodging there, and spend 
much of his time occupying a certain chair in the Norfolk 
Hotel in St Giles. There were so many old associations 
with Norwich that made it appear home to him. He was 
possessed of sentiment in plenty, it had caused his old 
mother to wish that " dear George would not' have such 
fancies about the old house " in Willow Lane. 

Later, Dr and Mrs MacOubrey removed to Oulton 
(about 1878), and Borrow's life became less dismal and 
lonely ; but he was nearing his end. Sometimes there 
would be a flash of that old unconquerable spirit. His 
stepdaughter relates how, 

"on the 2 1 st of November [1878], the place [the farm] 
having been going to decay for fourteen months, Mr 
Palmer [the tenant] called to demand that Mr Borrow 
should put it in repair ; otherwise he would do it himself 

1 Mr T. Watts-Dunton, in The Athenaum, 3rd Sept. 1881. 

2 Mr A. Egmont Hake, in The. Athemeum, 13th Aug. 1881. 



470 A LONELY OLD AGE [1879 

and send in the bills, saying, ' I don't care for the old 
farm or you either,' and several other insulting things ; 
whereupon Mr Borrow remarked very calmly, ' Sir, you 
came in by that door, you can go out by it ' — and so 
it ended." 1 



It was on an occasion such as this that Borrow yearned 
for a son to knock the rascal down. He was an infirm 
man, his body feeling the wear and tear of the strenuous 
open-air life he had led. In 1879, according to Mrs 
MacOubrey, he was ." unable to walk as far as the white 
gate," the boundary of his estate. He was obviously 
breaking-up very rapidly. The surroundings appear to 
have reflected the gloomy nature of the master of the 
estate. The house was dilapidated, "with everything 
about it more or less untidy," 2 although at this period his 
income amounted to upwards of five hundred pounds 
a year. 

" During his latter years," writes Mr W. A. Dutt, " his 
tall, erect, somewhat mysterious figure was often seen in 
the early hours of summer mornings or late at night on 
the lonely pathways that wind in and out from the banks 
of Oulton Broad . . . the village children used to hush 
their voices and draw aside at his approach. They looked 
upon him with fear and awe. ... In his heart, Borrow 
was fond of the little ones, though it amused him to watch 
the impression his strange personality made upon them. 
Older people he seldom spoke to when out on his solitary 
rambles ; but sometimes he would flash out such a glance 
from beneath his broad-brimmed hat and shaggy eyebrows 
as would make timid country folk hasten on their way 
filled with vague thoughts and fears of the evil eye." 3 

Even to the last the old sensitiveness occasionally 
flashed out, as on the occasion of a visit from the Vicar 
of Lowestoft, who drove over with an acquaintance of 

1 The Life of George Borrow, by Dr Knapp. 
- East Anglia, by J. Ewing Ritchie, 1883. 
" George Borrow in East Anglia. 



xxix.] THE END 471 

Borrow's to make the hermit's acquaintance. The visitor 
was so incautious as to ask the age of his host, when, 
with Johnsonian emphasis, came the reply : " Sir, I tell 
my age to no man ! " This occurred some time during 
the year 1880. Immediately his discomfited guest 
had departed, Borrow withdrew to the summer - house, 
where he drew up the following apothegm on " People's 
Age":- 

" Never talk to people about their age. Call a boy a 
boy, and he will fly into a passion and say, ' Not quite so 
much of a boy either ; I'm a young man.' Tell an elderly 
person that he's not so young as he was, and you will 
make him hate you for life. Compliment a man of eighty- 
five on the venerableness of his appearance and he will 
shriek out : ' No more venerable than yourself,' and will 
perhaps hit you with his crutch." 

On 1st December 1880 Borrow sent for his solicitor 
from Lowestoft, and made his will, by which he bequeathed 
all his property, real and personal, to his stepdaughter 
Henrietta, devising that it should be held in trust for her 
by his friend Elizabeth Harvey. It was evidently Borrow's 
intention so to tie up the bequest that Dr MacOubrey 
could not in any way touch his wife's estate. 

The end came suddenly. On the morning of 26th 
July 1 88 1 Dr and Mrs MacOubrey drove into Lowestoft, 
leaving Borrow alone in the house. When they returned 
he was dead. Throughout his life Borrow had been a 
solitary, and it seems fitting that he should die alone. 
It has been urged against his stepdaughter that she 
disregarded Borrow's appeals not to be left alone in 
the house, as he felt himself to be dying. He may have 
made similar requests on other occasions ; still, whatever 
the facts, it was strange to leave so old and so infirm a 
man quite unattended. 

On 4th August the body was brought to London, and 
buried beside that of Mrs George Borrow in Brompton 



472 A LONELY OLD AGE [1881 

Cemetery. On the stone, which is what is known as a 
saddle-back, is inscribed : 

In Loving Remembrance of 

GEORGE HENRY BORROW, Esq., 

who died july 26th, l88l (at his residence " oulton 
cottage, suffolk ") 

in his 79th year. 

(Author of The Bible in Spain, Lavengro— and 
other works.) 

"in hope of a glorious resurrection." 

A fruitless effort was made by the late J. J. Colman of 
Carrow to purchase the whole of Borrow's manuscripts, 
library, and papers for the Carrow Abbey Library ; but 
the price asked, a thousand pounds, was considered too 
high, and they passed into the possession of another. 
Eventually they found their way into the reverent hands 
of the man who subsequently made Borrow his hero, and 
who devoted years of his life to the writing of his 
biography — Dr W. J. Knapp. 

It was Borrow's fate, a tragic fate for a man so proud, 
to outlive the period of his fame. Not only were his 
books forgotten, but the world anticipated his death by 
some seven or eight years. His was a curiously complex 
nature, one that seems specially to have been conceived 
by Providence to arouse enmity among the many, and to 
awaken in the hearts of the few a sterling, unwavering 
friendship. It is impossible to reconcile the accounts of 
those who hated him with those whose love and respect 
he engaged. 

He was in sympathy with vagrants and vagabonds — a 
taste that was perhaps emphasised by the months he 
spent in preparing Celebrated Trials. If those months 



xxix] A REMARKABLE CHARACTER 473 

of hack work taught him sympathy with pariahs, it also 
taught him to write strong, nervous English. 

He was one of the most remarkable characters of 
his century — whimsical, eccentric, lovable, inexplicable ; 
possessed of an odd, dry humour that sometimes failed 
him when most he needed it. He lived and died a stranger 
to the class to which he belonged, and was the intimate 
friend and associate of that dark and mysterious personage, 
Mr Petulengro. He hated his social equals, and admired 
Tamerlane and Jerry Abershaw. It has been said 1 that 
he was born three centuries too late, and that he belonged 
to the age when men dropped mysteriously down the river 
in ships, later to return with strange stories and great 
treasure from the Spanish Main. Mr Watts-Dunton has 
said : — 

" When Borrow was talking to people in his own 
class of life there was always in his bearing a kind of shy, 
defiant egotism. What Carlyle called the ' armed neu- 
trality ' of social intercourse oppressed him. He felt 
himself to be in the enemy's camp. In his eyes there was 
always a kind of watchfulness, as if he were taking stock 
of his interlocutor and weighing him against himself. He 
seemed to be observing what effect his words were having, 
and this attitude repelled people at first. But the moment 
he approached a gypsy on the heath, or a poor Jew in 
Houndsditch, or a homeless wanderer by the wayside, he 
became another man. He threw off the burden of 
restraint. The feeling of the ■ armed neutrality ' was left 
behind, and he seemed to be at last enjoying the only 
social intercourse that could give him pleasure. This it 
was that enabled him to make friends so entirely with the 
gypsies. Notwithstanding what is called ' Romany guile ' 
(which is the growth of ages of oppression), the basis of 
the Romany character is a joyous frankness. Once let 
the isolating wall which shuts off the Romany from the 
'Gorgio' be broken through, and the communicativeness 
of the Romany temperament begins to show itself. The 
gypsies are extremely close observers ; they were very 
quick to notice how different was Borrow's bearing 

1 W. E. Henley. 



474 A LONELY OLD AGE [1881 

towards themselves from his bearing towards people of 
his own race, and Borrow used to say that ' old Mrs 
Heme and Leonora were the only gypsies who suspected 
and disliked him.'" 1 

This convincing character sketch seems to show the 
real Borrow. It accounts even for that high-piping, 
artificial voice (a gypsy trait) that he assumed when 
speaking with those who were not his intimate friends, 
and which any sudden interest in the conversation would 
cause him to abandon in favour of his own deep, rich 
tones. Mr F. J. Bowring, himself no friend of Borrow's 
for very obvious reasons, has described this artificial 
intonation as something between a beggar's whine and the 
high - pitched voice of a gypsy — in sort, a falsetto. He 
tells how, on one occasion, when in conversation with 
Borrow, he happened to mention to him something of 
particular interest concerning the gypsies, Borrow became 
immensely interested, immediately dropped the falsetto 
and spoke in his natural voice, which Mr Bowring describes 
as deep and manly. 

Even his friends were led sometimes into criticisms 
that appear unsympathetic. 2 He was, Dr Hake has said, 
" essentially hypochondriacal. Society he loved and hated 
alike : he loved it that he might be pointed out and 
talked of; he hated it because he was not the prince that 
he felt himself in its midst." 3 It is the son who shows 
the better understanding, although there is no doubt 
about Dr Hake's loyalty to Borrow. There is a faithful 
presentation of a man such as Borrow really seems to 
have been, in the following words : — 

1 The Athenmim, 25 th March 1899. 

2 Many attacks have been made upon Borrow's memory : one 
well-known man of letters and divine has gone to lengths that can 
only be described as unpardonable. It is undesirable to do more 
than deplore the lapse that no doubt the writer himself has already 
deeply regretted. 

3 Memoirs 0/ Eighty Years, 1892. 



xxtx.] A PATRIOT 475 

" Few men have ever made so deep an impression on 
me as George Borrow. His tall, broad figure, his stately 
bearing, his fine brown eyes, so bright yet soft, his thick- 
white hair, his oval beardless face, his loud rich voice and 
bold heroic air were such as to impress the most 
indifferent lookers-on. Added to this there was some- 
thing not easily forgotten in the manner in which he 
would unexpectedly come to our gates, singing some 
gypsy song, and as suddenly depart." x 

If Borrow wrote that he was ashamed of being an 
Englishman and referred to their " pinched and mortified 
expressions," if he found the virtues of the Saxons 
" uncouth and ungracious," he never permitted others to 
make disparaging remarks about his country or his 
countrymen. 2 He was typically English in this : agree 
with his strictures, add a word or two of dispraise of the 
English, and there appeared a terrifying figure of a 
patriot ; " not only an Englishman but an East English- 
man," which in Borrow's vocabulary meant the finest of 
the breed. He might with more truth have said a 
Cornishman. " I could not command myself when I 
heard my own glorious land traduced in this unmerited 
manner,"' 5 he once exclaimed. He permitted to himself, 
and to himself only, a certain latitude in such matters. 

That Borrow exaggerated is beyond all question, but 
it must not be called deliberate. He desired to give 
impressions of scenes and people, and he was inclined 
to emphasize certain features. Isopel Berners he wished 
it to be known was a queenly creature, and he described 
her as taller than himself (he was 6 feet 2 inches without 
his shoes). Exaggeration is colour, not form. A disbelief 
in his having encountered the convict son of the old 
apple-woman near Salisbury does not imply that the 

1 Mr A. Egmont Hake in The Athenawm, 13th August 1881. 

2 In The Bible in Spain. " Next to the love of God, the love 
of country is the best preventative of crime." (Page 53.) 

? ' The Bible in Spain, page 97. 



47G A LONELY OLD AGE [1881 

old woman herself is a fiction. Borrow insisted upon 
Norfolk as his county, " where the people eat the best 
dumplings in the world, and speak the purest English." 
He even spoke with a strong, if imperfect, East Anglian 
accent. As a matter of fact his father was Cornish and 
his mother of Huguenot stock. It would be absurd to 
argue from this obvious exaggeration of the actual facts 
that Borrow was a myth. 

Then he has been taken to task for not being a 
philologist as well as a linguist. He may have used the 
word philologist somewhat loosely on occasion. " Think 
what the reader would have lost," says one eminent but 
by no means prejudiced critic 1 with real sympathy and 
insight, " had Borrow waited to verify his etymologies." 
In all probability Nature will never produce a Humboldt- 
Le Sage combination of intellect. Language was to 
Borrow merely the key that permitted him access to the 
chamber of men's minds. It must be confessed that 
sometimes he invaded the sacred precincts of philology. 
His chapter on the Basque language in The Bible in Spain 
has been described as " utterly frantic," and German 
philologists, speechless in their astonishment, have 
expressed themselves upon his conclusions in marks of 
exclamation ! He was not qualified to discourse upon 
the science of language. 

He was a staunch member of the Church of England, 
because he believed there was in it more religion than in 
any other Church ; but this did not hinder him from 
consorting with the godless children of the tents, or 
contributing towards the upkeep of Nonconformist 
schools. The gypsies honoured and trusted him because, 
crooked themselves, they appreciated straightness and 
clean living in another. They had never known him use a 
bad word or do a bad thing. He was, on occasion, arrogant, 
overbearing, ungracious, in short all the unattractive things 
that a proud and masterful man can be ; but his friendship 
1 Mr Thomas Seccombe in The Bookman, Feb. 1892. 



xxix] UNDERSTANDING FRIENDS 477 

was as strong as the man himself; his charity above the 
narrow prejudices of sect. When he threw his tremendous 
power into any enterprise or undertaking, it was with the 
determination that it should succeed, if work and self- 
sacrifice could make it. " The wisest course," he thought, 
was, "... to blend the whole of the philosophy of the 
tombstone with a portion of the philosophy of the publican 
and something more, to enjoy one's pint and pipe and 
other innocent pleasures, and to think every now and then 
of death and judgment." x 

Borrow loved mystery for its own sake, and none were 
ever able quite to penetrate into the inner fastness of his 
personality. Those who came nearest to it were probably 
Hasfeldt and Ford, whose persistent good-humour was 
an armour against a reserve that chilled most men. Of 
all Borrow's friends it is probable that none under- 
stood him so well as Hasfeldt. He recognised the 
strength of character of the white-haired man who sang 
when he was happy, and he refused to be affected by his 
gloomy moods. " Write and tell me," he requests, " if 
you have not fallen in love with some nun or Gypsy in 
Spain, or have met with some other romantic adventure 
worthy of a roaming knight." On another occasion (June 
1845) ne boasts with some justification, "Heaven be 
praised, I can comprehend you as a reality, while many 
regard you as an imaginary, fantastic being. But they 
who portray you have not eaten bread and salt with you." 

Borrow's contemporary recognition was a chance ; he 
was writing for another generation, and some of the friends 
that he left behind have loyally striven to erect to him 
the only monument an artist desires — the proclaiming of 
his works. 

Nature it appeared had framed Borrow in a moment 

of magnificence, and, lest he should be enticed away from 

her, had instilled into his soul a hatred of all things 

artificial and at variance with her august decrees. He 

1 Wild Welles^ page 628. 



478 A LONELY OLD AGE [1881 

was shy and suspicious with the men and women who 
regulated their lives by the narrow standards of civilisation 
and decorum ; but with the children of the tents and the 
vagrants of the wayside he was a single-minded man, 
eager to learn the lore of the open air. He recognised 
in these vagabonds the true sons and daughters of " the 
Great Mother who mixes all our bloods." 



THE END 



LIST OF BORROWS WORKS 



1825 

Celebrated Trials, and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence, 

from the Earliest Records to the Year 1825. Six volumes, with 

plates. London. 
Faustus : His Life, Death, and Descent into Hell. Translated from 

the German [of F. M. von Klinger]. W. Simpkin and R. 

Marshall, London. 

1826 

Romantic Ballads. Translated from the Danish : and Miscellaneous 
Pieces. S. Wilkin, Norwich. 

1835 

Targum : or, Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and 
Dialects. St Petersburgh. Reprinted later by Jarrold & Sons, 
Norwich. 

The Talisman. From the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. With 
Other Pieces. St Petersburg. 

1841 

The Zincali; or, An Account of the Gypsies of Spain. With an 
Original Collection of their Songs and Poetry, and a Copious 
Dictionary of their Language. Two volumes. John Murray, 
London. 

1842 

The Bible in Spain; or, the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments 
of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in 

the Peninsula. Three volumes. John Murray, London. 

479 



480 LIST OF BORROWS WORKS 

1851 

Lavengro : The Scholar — The Gypsy — The Priest. Three volumes. 
John Murray, London. 

1857 

The Romany Rye : a Sequel to Lavengro. Two volumes. John 
Murray, London. 

i860 

The Sleeping Bard; or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell. By 
Elis Wyn. Translated from the Cambrian British. John Murray, 
London. 

1862 

Wild Wales: Its People, Language, and Scenery. Three volumes. 
John Murray, London. 

1874 

Romano Lavo-Lil : Word-Book of the Romany; or, English Gypsy 
Language. With Many Pieces in Gypsy, Illustrative of the Way 
of Speaking and Thinking of the English Gypsies ; with 
Specimens of Their Poetry, and an Account of Certain Gypsyries 
or Places Inhabited by Them, and of Various Things Relating to 
Gypsy Life in England. John Murray, London. 



The Turkish Jester ; or, the Pleasantries ofCogia Nasr Eddin Effendi. 
Translated from the Turkish. Jarrold & Sons, Norwich. 



The Death of Balder. Translated from the Danish of Evald. 
Jarrold & Sons, Norwich. 

From the foregoing list has been omitted the mysterious Life and 
Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller, and those works that 
Borrow edited or translated for the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. 



INDEX 



Abades, 276 

Abbotsford, 455 

Aberdeen, 440 

Ab Gwilym, 27, 29, 83, 336, 414, 418 

Academy, F. H. Groome in, 340, 462, 

463 
Acle, 24 

Adelung, F. von, 112 
Aldea Gallega, 1 60 
Alquin, State Councillor, 131 
Antiquities of the Royal School at Nor- 
wich, by J. Burton, 25 n, 
Antonio, Borrow's Greek servant. See 

Buchini, Antonio 
Antonio, Borrow's Portuguese servant, 

154. 155. 157, 160 
Aranjuez, 275, 276 
Arden, Francis (Ardrey in Lavengro), 

46, 54, 67, 68, 429 
Array olos, 1 60 
Arrevalo, 277 
Asmus, Simondsen & Co., bankers for 

British & Foreign Bible Society at 

St Petersburg, 94, 117 
Aston, Arthur, British Minister at 

Madrid, 317 
Astorga, 200 
Athenceum, The, 61, 64, 94 «., 143, 146, 

352, 372, 380 n., 388, 390, 398, 424, 

437, 439 "•, 445, 4^3, 464, 465, 466, 

468, 469, 474 
Autobiographical notes, MS. supplied 

to Mr John Longe, quoted, 23 «., 34, 

96 n. 
Autobiography. See Lavengro 
Aviles, 205 n. 



Badajos, 162, 164-166, 218, 336 
Bailly, Juan Antonio, 336 
Bala, 416 

Balmaceda, Carlist leader, 277 
Bangor, 415, 417 
4S1 



Bargas, 269 

Barion, Miss, afterwards Mrs Fitz- 
Gerald, 426 

Basque translation of Scriptures (St 
Luke) made by Dr Oteiza, and put in 
hand to print, 217 ; completed and 
published, 221 ; all copies of St Luke 
at shop seized, ordered to be placed 
in all public libraries, 228 

Bayonne, 75, 189 

Bayr Jairgey and Glion Doo, 420, 422 

Beckford, William, 61 

Belfast, 455 

Bellotas, Las, 205 

Bembibre, 201 

Bentley, Lord, 180 

Berkeley, Rev. J. R. P., 406, 408, 410, 
4", 453 «• 

Berners, Isopel, 64, 65, 66, 398, 435, 

475 

Berwick, 455 

Betanzos, 202 

Bexley, Lord, 271 

Bible in Spain, The, quoted from, 17, 58, 
75, 76, 88, 153, 154, 159, 160, 161, 
162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 171, 182, 
183, 185, 189, 190, 191, 2or, 202, 204, 
205, 210, 217, 228, 232, 234, 235, 236, 
246, 247, 269, 279, 284 «., 285, 298, 
340, 342, 343, 344-347, 348-354, 356, 
359, 365, 368, 370, 373, 377, 379, 39*> 
401, 404, 430, 431, 47s, 476 

Bible in the World, 271 

Binding of Manchu Testament, 117, 
132 ; Spanish Testament, 194 

Birrell, Hon. Augustine, 400 

Blackwood's Magazine, 370, 37 1, 390 

Bligh, Hon. J. D. (British Minister at 
St Petersburg), 114, 170 

Bludoff, M. (Russian Minister of the 
Interior), 114, 115 

Blyth, Esther, 455 

Bognor, 456 

2 H 



482 



INDEX 



Bohemian Grammar, MS. of George 
Borrow in British Museum, 365 

Bolt tin Oficial de Malaga, 242 

Bonanza, 303 

Bookman, The, 86, 400, 476 

Boorde, Andrew, 339 

Booton, 432 

Borrego, Andreas, 192, 208, 267 

Borrow, Ann, wife of Captain Thomas 
Borrow and mother of George 
Borrow — 
Daughter of Farmer Perfrement of 
East Dereham, 4 ; playing as super 
at theatre, 4 ; married to Thomas 
Borrow, 5 ; becomes acquainted with 
John Murray, founder of publishing 
house, 5 ; her first and second sons 
born, 6 ; with her husband and 
children at East Dereham, 8 ; to 
Norman Cross, 11 ; Colchester and 
Edinburgh, 13; Norwich, 15 ; 
Clonmel, 16 ; Templemore, 17 ; 
Norwich, 18 ; settled at Norwich, 19 ; 
Captain Borrow's savings produce for 
her ^"100 per annum, 40 ; receives 
back money George had borrowed, 
io5 ; and remittances from him from 
Russia, 118, 119; receives ^50 from 
sale of John's effects, 126; her 
anxiety about George's Chinese pro- 
ject, 139 ; her wish to have him with 
her, I48 ; he stops with her for a 
short time, 149 ; The Bible in Spain 
dedicated to her, 350 ; her removal 
from Norwich to Oulton Hall, 402 ; 
her death at Oulton, 439 

Borrow, Ann, mother of George Borrow, 
letters of — 
to George Borrow, 124, 1 37 
to Mrs Clarke, 321 ; now Mrs G. 

Borrow, q.v. 
to Mrs George Borrow, 351, 402 

Borrow, George Henry, his birth, 6 ; 
and christening, 7 ; his infancy with 
the regiment, 7 ; his characteristics 
as a child, 7 ; before three seized a 
viper without harm, 8 ; with his 
parents at East Dereham, 8 ; no 
application to book learning, 9 ; his 
vivid recollections of early years, 10 ; 
his interest in Robinson Crusoe, 10 ; 
at Norman Cross, friendship with 
snake-catcher, II, 12 ; present of a 
tame viper, 12 ; learning Lilly's 
Latin Grammar, 13 ; removal to 
Colchester and Edinburgh, 13 ; 
attending the High School, Edin- 
burgh, 14 ; proves himself a good 
fighter in school "bickers" 14; 



Borrow, George Henry — contd. 

removal to Norwich, goes to Gram- 
mar School there, 15 ; with family 
to Clonmel, 16 ; attends Protestant 
school there, meets Murtagh, who 
teaches him Erse, 17 ; moved on to 
Templemore and learns to ride, 17 ; 
lasting impressions of nine months in 
Ireland, 17 ; return to Norwich, 18 ; 
back at Grammar School there, 19; 
previous schooling at Huddersfield 
and Sheffield, 19 ; his attainments 
contrasted with John's, 20 ; some of 
his contemporaries at the Grammar 
School, 20 ; his dislike of school 
routine, 20 ; learning French, Spanish, 
and Italian, 21 ; fishing in the Yare 
and shooting, 22 ; learning to box 
from Thurtell, 22 ; sees prize-fight 
at Eaton, 22 ; meets Ambrose 
Petulengro, 22 ; learns Romany, his 
numerous vagabond acquaintances, 
saves boy from drowning, 23 ; with 
three others runs away from home, 
but captured, 24 ; accretions to the 
story, 25 ; his inclination for the 
army, a serious illness and attack of 
" Horrors," articled to a firm of 
solicitors, 26 ; leaves home to live 
with Mr Simpson, learns Welsh and 
translates poems of Ab Gwilym, 27 ; 
his bargain with the gtoom who 
taught him Welsh, his method of 
learning the language, 28 ; Danish, 
Arabic, Armenian, and Saxon learnt 
in this period, as door-keeper at the 
office excluded the best clients and 
admitted those who interested him 
most, 29 ; his great regard for Mr 
Simpson, 30, 31 ; his admiration 
and affection for John, 31 ; at a 
prize-fight at North Walsham, 
32 ; his friendship with William 
Taylor, 33-35 ; now master of twenty 
languages, 34 ; his description of 
Taylor, 35 ; his despair of his future, 
meeting with Dr Bowring, 36 ; de- 
pendent on his own earnings after his 
father's death, 40 ; leaves Norwich 
for London, lodgings at ; Milman 
Street, Bedford Row, 41 ; magazines 
in which he had already published 
verse translations, 41 ; his first inter- 
view with Sir Richard Phillips and 
commission to write a story in style 
of Dairyman's Daughter, 42, 43 ; 
dinner with Sir Richard, commission 
for Celebrated Trials, and for transla- 
tion of Proximate Causes into German, 



INDEX 



483 



Borrow, George Henry — conld. 
44-46 ; his leisure spent in exploring 
the city with Francis Arden, 46 ; a 
surprise visit from John, 47 ; Phillips' 
constant interruptions bring on an 
attack of " Horrors," Kerrison's 
account of his behaviour, 48 ; his 
remuneration for editing the Trials 
and translating Proximate Causes, 49 ; 
dispute with Phillips, 49-50 ; Proxi- 
mate Causes translated by another, 
50; Trials finished, 51; translates 
Klinger's Faust us, 52-54 ; fails to 
find a publisher for his translation of 
Ab Gwilym, Joseph Sell, an un- 
published work, 54-55 ; written in a 
week, when reduced to half-a-crown, 
55-56 ; and sold for ^20, 56 ; argu- 
ments for and against the existence 
of the story, 57-59 ; after fourteen 
months there, leaves London, 60 ; 
coach to Amesbury, walks to Stone- 
henge and Salisbury, his habit of 
touching against the evil eye, meets 
Jack Slingsby, 61 ; buys his 
beat, plant and pony, and starts 
tinker, Mrs Heme tries to poison 
him, 62 ; goes as far as the Welsh 
border, then to Willenhall, 63 ; a fit 
of the " Horrors," fight with the 
Flaming Tinman, meets Isopel 
Berners, 64 ; his attitude towards 
her, 65 ; his story of buying a horse 
with moneyborrowed from Petulengro, 
66 ; doubts about the story, and other 
experiences, 67 ; discrepancies in his 
itinerary, 68, 69 ; his description of 
his own character at this time, 69 ; 
the " Horrors " again, 70 ; returns to 
Norwich, finds his translation of 
Faustus has been destroyed, 71 ; his 
probable and ascertained adventures 
during the "Veiled Period," 72-91 ; 
adventures of characters in Lavengro 
and Romany Rye probably his 
own during this time, 72 ; pub- 
lishes Romantic Ballads from the 
Danish, 73 ; in London again, 
74 ; a sitting to Haydon, 74 ; 
his " Veiled Period " assumed to be 
one of wandering, 75 ; visits to Italy, 
France, Spain, and Portugal, 75-77 ; 
in 1827 back in Norwich, and in 1829 
in London, proposes a translation of 
the Scoto-Gaelic Bards, 78 ; at work 
on Songs of Scandinavia, 80, 8 1 ; 
desires a commission under Prince 
Leopold if he should become King 
of Greece, 81, 82 ; tries for an ap- 



Borrow, George Henry — contd. 

pointment at the British Museum, 
82 ; in Norwich once more, 84 ; his 
wish for an Army career, 84-85 ; Songs 
of Scandinavia never compiled, 86 ; 
commissioned to translate The Sleep- 
ing Bard, 87 ; in Paris during " The 
Three Glorious Days " of Revolution, 
and Norwich again, 88 ; writing to 
Army Pay Office about John's half- 
pay, 88-89 5 thoughts of joining John 
in Mexico, 89 ; his failures due to his 
hyper-sensitive nature, 90-91 ; Rev. 
F. Cunningham introduces him to 
the secretary of the Bible Society, 
93 ; walks to London to interview 
Bible Society, 95 ; their satisfaction 
with his capabilities, 96 ; returns to 
Norwich with Manchu books, but 
wants grammar, 97 ; the racy style 
of his letters, 97-98 ; proposes to 
translate St John into Romany, 
suggests his brother as agent in 
Mexico, 98 ; reads proofs of the 
Nahuatl edition of St Luke, 99 ; 
his progress in Manchu, still without 
the grammar, 100 ; writes that he 
has mastered Manchu, invited to 
London for examination, 101 ; re- 
commended by Sub-Committee to 
go to St Petersburg to assist with 
Manchu Testament, 102 ; rebuked 
for spiritual pride, his anxiety to 
acquire the idiom of Earl St., 103 ; 
his mild reply, his appointment and 
departure ior Russia, 104 ; not a 
good accountant, Harriet Martineau's 
opinion of his appointment, 105 ; 
letters of introduction, 104, 106 ; 
repays money he had borrowed from 
his mother, 106 ; on his journey, the 
" Horrors " cured at Hamburg, 107 ; 
his journey by Liibeck and Tra- 
vemiinde to St Petersburg, 108 ; his 
love of St Petersburg and his friends 
there, 109 ; his opinion of Russians as 
linguists, no ; learning Russian and 
making acquaintances, III ; transcrib- 
ing 2 Chronicles and St Matthew, 
112 ; to complete the transcription 
took him all the year, 113 ; petitions 
Russian Government for permission 
to print Manchu Scriptures, 1 14; 
permission granted, 115 ; feels the 
severity of the winter, 116; finding 
printer and arranging the binding, 
and improving his Manchu, 117; 
finds the difficulty of the language 
greater than he supposed, remit- 



484 



INDEX 



Borrow, George Henry — contd. 

tances to his mother, 118; catches 
a chill and has an attack of 
" Horrors," 119 ; realizing difficulties 
of distribution, 120; suggests means 
of overcoming them, 121 ; bargaining 
with printers, 122 ; and papermakers, 
123 ; his grief at his brother's death, 
description of Russian living, 125 ; 
removes to larger premises, allows 
three months to pass without writing 
to the Society, 126 ; his account 
of difficulties overcome and work 
done in three months, 127-133; 
proposes that he should become the 
Society's agent at Kiakhta, 134; 
correcting type as well as proofs, 
135 ; he sends the Society copies of 
the Four Gospels in Manchu, 137 ; 
disagrees with Lipovzoff on a matter 
of translation, 138 ; still intent on 
going to China to distribute the 
Bible, 139; his difficulty in getting 
permission to ship Manchu Testa- 
ment to England, 140-141 ; the 
translations he made whilst in 
Russia, 141-143 ; he visits Moscow, 
143 ; sees much of the gypsies there, 
144-T45 ; returns to London, 146 ; 
his wish to remain in the service of 
the Society, 148-149; stays with his 
mother at Norwich and visits Oulton, 
149 ; asked for his opinion whether 
he should go to China or Portugal, 
suggests Portugal and Spain, 151 ; 
takes letters of introduction to Lisbon, 
151 ; sails for Lisbon, and on arrival 
wishes himself in Russia, 153 ; his 
servant Antonio, 154; visits every 
part of the city and surroundings, 
154 ; to Mafra and Cintra, and 
nearly loses his life, 155 ; asks Mr 
Wilby which is the most ignorant 
region, and goes there, 156; with 
Antonio to Evora, distributing Testa- 
ments and talking with the peasants, 
J 57 J gets introductions from Dr 
Bowring, and returns to Lisbon, 
159; sets out for Spain, 160; 
his idiot guide, 161 ; arrives at 
Badajos, 162 ; with the gypsies, 164- 

166 ; settles in lodgings at Madrid, 

167 ; at first unfavourably impressed, 
later revised his opinion, 168-169 ; 
obtains, through Hon. G. Villiers, 
audience with the premier, Mendi- 
ziibal, for permission to print Scrip- 
tures, or sell imported ones, but is 
refused, and writes to the Society 



Borrow, George Henry — contd. 

hopefully, 170-172 ; a change in 
the Government increases his hopes, 
175 ; suffering from the climate and 
the delayed permission, 178 ; his sense 
of diplomacy, 180 ; suffering from 
the reaction after long suspense, 1 81 ; 
ordered home, 183 ; leaves Madrid 
and reaches London, 184 ; confers 
with the Society, sends his mother 
money, and returns via Falmouth to 
Lisbon, 185; escape from fire and ship- 
wreck, and on to Cadiz, 186 ; thence 
to Seville, 188; Cordoba, 189; and 
Madrid, 191 ; advised by Mr Villiers 
to take no notice of change of Govern- 
ment, but proceed with printing, buys 
paper for Testament, 191 ; arranges 
for printing, 192 ; proposes to ride 
into the wildest parts and sell Scrip- 
tures, 193 ; obtains permission, 194 • 
finishes printing, 195 ; sets forth 
with his Greek servant Antonio 
Buchini, 196 ; his efforts to sell 
through the booksellers, 197 ; his 
method of proceeding with the trade, 
and in advertising, 199 ; prostrated 
for a week at Leon, 200 ; his account 
of a Spanish Grand Post, 201 ; one 
horse falling sick, he bleeds him, and 
he and Antonio lead both, 202 ; 
dangers from robbers and Carlists, 
202-203 ! selling in the market-place, 
203-204 ; arrested at Cape Finisterre 
as a spy, 204 ; sells his black Anda- 
lusian at a profit, 205 ; a night visit 
at Orviedo, 205-207 ; anxious to get 
back to Madrid on account of the 
stock and his health, 207 ; Testaments 
he had written for not arrived at 
Santander and he ill, he rides through 
rebel infested country to Madrid, 208- 
209; after an absence of five and a half 
months, 209 ; his unconventional 
methods, 210 ; finds adverse political 
changes in Madrid, 211 ; his methods 
of advertisement and sale, his reply 
to a newspaper attack on the Society, 
212 ; his first meeting with Lieut. 
Graydon, and the beginning of 
troubles caused by him, 213 ; find- 
ing the Madrid booksellers so 
apathetic he opens a shop for the 
sale of Scriptures, where he is asked 
chiefly for complete Bibles and orders 
them, 214 ; engages Francisco in 
place of Antonio, 215 ; more adver- 
tising, 216 ; starts printing Basque 
and Gitano St Luke, 217 ; the 



INDEX 



485 



Borrow, George Henry — contd, 

Gitano translated by himself with 
the help of gypsies, 218 ; suspicion 
caused by their presence at his lodg- 
• ings, 218. 219; ordered by Civil 
Governor to sell no more Spanish 
New Testaments without r.otes, 220 ; 
complies, but continues to sell the 
Gitano and Basque St Luke, 221 ; 
the intervention of Sir George 
Villiers alone prevents his expulsion, 
222 ; Count Ofalia applying for a 
Gitano St Luke, Borrow takes it in 
person, 223 ; misunderstanding re- 
garding Marin, 225-226 ; his anxiety 
about his stock of Bibles, etc., 227- 
228 ; hires a room for safety of stock, 
228 ; receives a call from a police 
agent, 231 ; followed by the issue of a 
warrant, 232 ; his lodgings searched 
in his absence and he escapes arrest, 
hears of the warrant and returns to 
his lodgings and is arrested, 234 ; 
imprisoned, 235 ; glad of the oppor- 
tunity of studying criminals, 236 ; 
refuses to leave till his character 
is cleared, 237 ; Diplomatic Action 
in his case, 237-241, 243-246 ; compli- 
cated by Lieut. Graydon's behaviour, 
241-243 ; liberated with unsullied 
honour, 246 ; his differences with the 
Society over Graydon, 248-251, 254- 
264 ; writes to the Correo National 
as sole authorised agent of the 
Society, 251 ; has an interview with 
the Archbishop of Toledo, 253 ; not 
having heard from the Society for 
some time he proposes to go on 
another tour, 257; receives the 
Society's resolutions on Graydon's 
affair, 257, 258 ; and Brandram's 
covering letter, 258-261 ; aconference 
with him desired by the Society, 265 ; 
he writes explaining why he does 
not go — false testimony is sworn 
against him, 266 ; a rural distributing 
excursion in New Castile, 268-271 ; 
a peasant's recollections of him, 270 ; 
being instructed by the Society to 
consult Sir George Villiers, he 
returns to Madrid, 271 ; finds Sir 
George is in England, 273 ; and sets 
out with Antonio and Lopez for La 
Mancha, 275 ; but Lopez being 
arrested and released, they return 
to Madrid, but undiscouraged start 
for Old Castile, 276-278 ; he loses 
both his companions, rescues Lopez 
from prison, 277 ; returns alone to 



Borrow, George Henry — contd. 

Madrid, finds resolution recalling 
him at once, 278 ; expects to be in 
England in three weeks but illness 
prevents for another month, 279 ; his 
report to the Society, withdrawn later, 
280-282 ; returns to Spain to find 
political changes, and his confiscated 
Testaments threatened with destruc- 
tion, 283 ; after ten days in Seville 
proceeds to Madrid, 284 ; re-engages 
Antonio Buchini who had run away, 
his Arabian horse sent to him by 
Lopez with Victoriano to assist 
in distribution, 285 ; a tour of the 
villages around Madrid, 286 ; leaves 
Victoriano distributing and returns to 
Madrid, 287 ; employs eight col- 
porteurs amongst the poor and 
servants of Madrid, 288 ; a midnight 
summons, starts for Seville to dispose 
of the remainder of the Testaments, 
289 ; another meeting with the 
Manchegan Prophetess, 292 ; his 
craft with the Custom-house, 293 ; 
his meeting with Lieut.-Col. Napier, 
294-297 ; his assistants at Seville, 
298 ; he takes a house there, 299 ; had 
kept up correspondence with Mrs 
Clarke of Oulton, 300 ; a seizure of 
Scriptures at his house, 301 ; an 
expedition to the coast of Barbary, 
303 ; engages Hayim Ben Attar, 
trouble with the Vice-Consul, 304 ; 
after five weeks there returns to 
Seville, instructions to sell out and 
return to England, 305 ; proposes 
distributing in La Mancha, 307, 309 ; 
realises that his connexion with the 
Society nears its end, 308 ; his trouble 
over passport, 310-315; imprisoned 
312-315; his meeting with the 
Marques de Santa Coloma, 316 ; his 
case taken up by the Embassy, 317 ; 
his friendship with Mrs Clarke, 320, 
322 ; their engagement, 321 ; his 
tributes to her when his wife, 322 ; 
no news of him at Earl Street for 
three months, nor he from there for 
five, 323 ; his return to England, his 
marriage to Mrs Clarke, 324 ; his 
connexion with the Bible Society 
reviewed, 326-328 ; goes to Oulton 
Cottage to live, 330 ; writing in the 
Summer-house, 330-331 ; as host, 
331 ; Miss Harvey's recollections of 
him, 332-334 ; leaves MS. of The 
Zincali with Mr Murray, 335 ; his 
interest in the gypsies, 337-339 ; the 



486 



INDEX 



Borrow, George Henry— contd. 
journal he kept in the Peninsula, 
his friendship with Richard Ford, 
342 ; borrows from the Bible 
Society his letters to them, 343 ; 
sends MS. of Bible in Spain to Mr 
Murray, 344 ; horse-breaking and 
quarrelling with the rector about 
their dogs, 347 ; his Bible in Spain 
published, 350 ; its reception and 
sales, 351-353; translations, 352; 
fame, 354 ; but still restless, Royal 
Institution wishes to honour him, 
355 ; his portrait by Phillips, 357 ; 
trying for a Government post abroad, 
358 ; made a bad impression on 
women, 360 ; makes a journey to the 
East, 361-364 ; his first draft of 
notes for Lavengro, 365 ; writes for 
The Quarterly, a review of Ford's 
Handbook to' Spam, 368; rather an 
attack on Spain than a review, 369 ; 
worried by railway at Oulton, 371 ; 
would like to be J.P., 373-376 ; 
tries for appointment as Consul at 
Canton, 377 ; the sales of his books, 
379 ; his love of animals, 381 ; his 
occasional rudeness in conversation, 
382 ; capable of deep feeling, 384 ; 
a frequent guest of Murray's, 385 ; 
more strange behaviour, 386 ; slow 
progress with Lavengro, 387-389 ! 
MS. sent at last, 389 ; unfavourably 
received, 390-391 ; the liner side of 
his nature, 392 ; his limitations in 
literary appreciation, 392-394 ; his 
resentment of criticism of Lavengro, 
395-396 ; his personality the great 
factor in his writings, 400 ; his 
devotion to his mother, 402 ; his 
removal from Oulton to Great 
Yarmouth for his wife's health sake, 
403 ; his prowess as swimmer, 404 ; 
visits his kinsfolk in Cornwall, 405- 
412 ; his intended book on his 
Cornish trip, 411 ; in London for a 
fortnight working at the British 
Museum, 412-413 ; returns to' Yar- 
mouth, 413; a summer trip with his 
wife and daughter-in-law to Wales, 
414-420 ; his attachment to Henrietta, 
415 ; his wife and Henrietta return- 
ing home, he tramps Wales for two 
months, 416-420 ; a summer holiday 
in the Isle of Man, 420-422 ; his 
note- books of the Tour, 421 ; his 
reputation amongst the villagers at 
Oulton, 423 ; his opinions of good 
old ale, 424-425 ; another visit to 



Borrow, George Henry — contd. 

Wales, 439 ; a walking tour in 
the Highlands, a trip with his 
family to Ireland, 440 ; looking after 
some property at Mattishall, 440- 
442 ; publishes his translation of 
The Sleeping Bard, 443-444 ; removal 
to London, 444 ; accounts of his life 
in London, 444-455 ; with his wife to 
Belfast, and a trip through the Low- 
lands of Scotland, 455 ; his greater 
interest in books after his wife's 
death, 458 ; publishes Romano Lavo- 
Lil, 462 ; his return to Oulton, 466 ; 
takes temporary lodgings at Norwich, 
469 ; his apothegm on " People's 
age," his death, and burial beside his 
wife, 471 
Borrow, George Henry, languages he 

was acquainted with — 
Latin, 13, 20, 34 «., 34, 142 11. 
Erse, 17, 31 11 „ 34, 142 n. 
Greek, 20, 31 «., 34 
French, 21, 31 «., 34, 142 «., 294 
Italian, 21, 31 ;/., 34, 142 n. 
Spanish, 21, 31 «., 34, 142 ;/., 294 
Romany, 23, 34, 142 ;/. 
Welsh, 27, 31 //., 34, 98, 142 ;/. 
Danish, 29, 31 «., 34, 76, 142 ;/. 
Arabic, 29, 31 «., 142 ;/. 
Armenian, 29, 31 ;.'. 
Saxon, 29 

German, 31 «., 34, 142 ;/., 294 
Hebrew, 31 «., 34, 142 n. 
Gaelic, 31 ;/., 142 n. 
Portuguese, 34, 76, 142 ;/. 
Celtic and Go: hie Dialects, 34 
Moultanee, 76, 295 
Manchu, 96-102, 117, 142 n. 
Nahuatl, 99 
Russian, ill, 142 ;/. 
Turkish, 134, 142 n. 
Chinese, 134, 142 n. 
Ancient British, 142 it. 

Danish, 142 n. 

Norse, 142 ;/. 

Irish, 142 n. 
Anglo-Saxon, 142 >:. 
Dutch, 142 n. 
Finnish, 142 n. 
Malo-Russian, 142 ;/. 
Modern Greek, 142 ;/., 294 
Persian, 142 ». 
Polish, 142 ;/. 
Provencal, 142 n. 
Swedish, 142 n. 
Tartar, 134, 1 42 n. 
Tibetan, 142 n. 
Cambrian British, 142 n. 



INDEX 



487 



Borrow, George Henry, languages he 
was acquainted with — contd. 

Basque, 217 

Gitano, 217, 218 

Hindi, 294 
Borrow, George Henry, his letters 
quoted — 

to Roger Kerrison, 40-41 

to Simpkin and Marshall, 53 n. 

to B. R. Haydon, 74 

to his mother, 75, 104, 106, 108, 109, 
no, 116 «., 119, 123, 124, 125, 
148, 167, 168, 185, 236 

to Rev. A. Brandram, 78 »., 149, 150- 
15', 167. 173,175,176,177,178, 
180, 181, 182, 183, 187, 190, 191, 
192, 193, 194, 197, 198, 200, 204, 
205, 207, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 
215, 2l6, 219, 220, 221, 224, 226, 
227, 24O, 241, 249, 250, 252, 253, 

2 54, 255, 256, 257, 262-264, 265, 
266, 268, 270, 271-273, 277,278, 
279, 284, 285, 288, 290,291,293, 
298, 299, 301, 302, 304, 305,307, 
308, 309, 310, 314, 317, 320, 321, 
322, 323, 364 

to Dr J. Bowring, afterwards Sir, 
79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 158 

to Secretary of State for War, 89 

to Rev. J. Jowett, 93 »., 97, 98, 100, 
101, 102, 107, no, 113, 114, 115, 
116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 
127-133, '34, 136, 138, 139, 140, 
141, 150, 153, 154, 155 

to Rev. F. Cunningham, 98, 118, 141, 
142 

to J. Tarn, 135 

to Richard Ford, 196, 367, 368 

to Lord William Hervey, 277 

to Rev, G. Browne, 278, 306 

to Dr Usoz, 279 

to W. Hitchin, 288 

to Mrs Clarke, 301, 321 ; now his 
wife O7.V.) 

to his wife, 352, 357, 388, 409, 411, 
412, 4:3 

to Dawson Turner, 387 

to Hon. G. S. S. Jerningham, 311- 

313 

to Rev. Denniss, 348 

to C. G. Leland, 460 

to J. G. Lockhart, 374 

to John Murray (II.), 348, 349, 351, 
355, 356, 358, 365 

to John Murray (III.), 5, 34°, 343, 
346, 349.351,354,356,358, 361, 
366, 367, 372, 373. 374, 379. 387, 
389, 390, 42s, 432, 434, 437 

to Robert Taylor, 405 



Borrow, George Henry, his reports to 
the Bible Society, 95, 138, 143, 144, 
145, 147, 184, 192, 196, 203, 209, 
221-222, 229, 252, 261-262, 265, 
275, 280-282 

Borrow, Henry, uncle of George Borrow, 
3,405 

Borrow, Henry, cousin of George 
Borrow, 406 

Borrow, John, grandfather of George 
Borrow, 2 

Borrow, John Thomas, first son of 
Thomas and Ann Borrow, and 
brother of George — 
His birth, 6 ; his brother's description 
of him as a child, 6 ; making quick 
progress at school, 9 ; attending the 
High School, Edinburgh, 14 ; re- 
moval to Norwich, and attending 
Grammar School, 15 ; studies 
drawing and painting under old 
Crome, 15 ; gazetted ensign in his 
father's regiment, with regiment 
to Clonmel, 16 ; promoted lieu- 
tenant, removal to Templemore, 
17; disbanded at Norwich, 18; 
previous schooling at Huddersfield 
and Sheffield, 19 ; his attainments 
contrasted with George's, 20 ; his pro- 
fession closed by the Peace, making 
progress with Crome, 31 ; goes to 
London to study under Haydon, and 
to Paris, 32 ; gives no address for 
six months, his return during his 
father's last illness, 38 ; comes to 
London with a commission for 
Haydon and visits George, 47 ; 
goes to Mexico, 88 ; his death, 123 ; 
his career in Mexico, 124 ; leaves 
fifty pounds, 126 

Borrow, John Thomas, letters of — 
to George, 58, 81, 88, 90, 99 

Borrow, Mary, grandmother of George 
Borrow, 2 

Borrow, Mary, nee Skepper, wife of 
George Borrow — 
Her birth and parentage, married to 
Henry Clarke, R.N., birth of her 
daughter Henrietta, 92 ; introduces 
Borrow to Rev. Francis Cunning- 
ham, 93 ; keeps up correspond- 
ence with Borrow, 137 ; loss of her 
mother, 149 ; purposes to settle 
in Seville, 300 ; comes to reside in 
Borrow's house at Seville, 301 ; 
Marques de Santa Coloma speaks of 
her as Borrow's wife, 316 ; return to 
England, and her marriage to 
Borrow, 324 ; makes fair copies of 



488 



INDEX 



Borrow, Mary, nee Skepper, wife of 
George Borrow — contd. 
his MSS., 334 ; transcribes from his 
letters to the Bible Society, 343 ; a 
trip in Wales with her husband and 
Henrietta, 414-416; a summer 
holiday in the Isle of Man, 420; 
her failing health, 455 ; a visit to 
Bognor, and return to London, her 
last illness, 456 ; and death, 457 

Borrow, Mary, wife of George Borrow, 
letters of — 
to George Borrow, 140 
to John Murray (III.), 363, 368, 422, 

430, 431, 440, 444 
to Mrs Borrow, sen., 414, 416, 428 
to Robert Cooke, 422, 423 

Borrow, Samuel, cousin of George 
Borrow, 421 

Borrow, Thomas, father of George 
Borrow — 
Leader of the Liskeard men in a 
town fight at Menheniot, working 
on his father's farm, appren- 
ticed to Edmund Hambley, 2 ; 
enlists in Coldstream Guards, his 
previous Militia training, 3 ; promo- 
tion and transfer as Sergeant-Major 
to West Norfolk Militia, his fight 
with Ben Bryan in Hyde Park, 4 ; 
marries Ann Perfrement, promoted 
to Quartermaster and later Adjutant, 
5 ; in quarters at East Dereham, 8 ; 
removal to Norman Cross, 11 ; 
Colchester and Edinburgh, 13 ; 
to Norwich, 15 ; with regiment to 
Clonmel, 16; and Templemore, 17; 
return to Norwich and disbanded, 
retired on full pay, 18 ; settled there, 
19 ; puzzled what to do with George, 

25 ; would like him to become clergy- 
man, but at last decides on the law, 

26 ; his anxiety for George's future, 
28, 29 ; his anxiety about John's 
career, 31 ; his failing health, and 
increased anxiety as to George's 
future, 37; hisdeath, 38 ; and George's 
account of the last scene, 38, 39 ; his 
pension ceasing at death, his savings 
produce ^"ioo per annum for widow, 
his will, 40 

Borrow, William, son of George Bor- 

row's cousin, Samuel Borrow, 421 
Boulogne, 279 
Bowring, F. G., 376 «., 378, 383, 415 «., 

4I9> 474 
Bowring, Dr, afterwards Sir John, 36- 
37, 58, 79-37, 106, 158, "159, 352, 
354, 363, 376, 383, 391,396 



Bowring, Dr, afterwards Sir John, letters 
of, to George Borrow, 83, 377 

Bowring, Wilfred J., 79 n. 

Brace, Charles L., Hungary in 1 85 1, 
362 

Brackenbury, J. M., Consul at Cadiz, 

303, 307, 323, 324 
Letter of, to George Borrow, 307 «. 
Brandram, Rev. Andrew, of Bible 
Society, 76, 93, 95, 98, roi «., 
133, 151, 188,281, 306, 326,327, 

334, 434 
Letters of, to Rev. E.Whitely, 76, 1 51 ; 
to George Borrow, 105, 148, 150, 
159,173,174, 175,177,183,187, 

194, T 95, 207, 212, 2T3, 2l6, 258- 
26l, 264, 273 «., 274, 286, 290- 
291, 325 

to Lieut. Gray don, 214 
Breame, Anne. See Skepper, Mrs Anne 
Bristol, Lord, 382 
Britannia, The, letter from " A 

School-fellow of Lavengro" in, 20, 

21,25, 33, 34 
British & Foreign Bible Society, 72, 

75, 93-339 
History of. See Canton, W., History 

of British & Foreign Bible 

Society 
Resolutions, Minutes, and Reports 

of, quoted, 104, 126, 129, 145- 

146, 151, 257, 258, 278, 305, 

309, 325 

Brooke, Sir James, Rajah of Sarawak, 
schoolfellow of Borrow's at Norwich, 
20, 69 

Browne, Rev. G., Secretary of Bible 
Society, 278, 286 
Letter of, to George Borrow, 306 

Browning, Robert and E. B., 445 

Bucharest, 362 

Buchini, Antonio, Borrow's Greek ser- 
vant, 196, 202, 204, 208, 209, 215, 
247, 268, 269, 270, 275, 276, 277, 
285, 287, 288, 289, 292, 299, 302 

Burcham, Thos. B., schoolfellow of 
Borrow's at Norwich, 20 

Burney, H. D., 410 

Bury Post, 404 

Bury St Edmunds, 384 

Byron, Lord, 393 



Cacabelos, 201 

Cadiz, 186-188, 283, 303, 307 

Calzado, Jose (Pepe), salesman at the 

Madrid Depot, 214 
Caniero, the, 205 
Canton, 377 



INDEX 



489 



Canton, W., History of the British & 
Foreign Bible Society, 2 1 3, 22 4, 22 5 "•> 
249, 262, 281-282 

Cardigan, 439 

Carey, John, 45 n. 

Carlisle, 455 

Carnarvon, 416 

Castle Douglas, 455 

Castro Pol, 205 

Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases 
of Criminal Jurisprudence from the 
Earliest Records to the year 1825, 44, 

45. 49-53, 57, 47 2 

Chester, 414 

Chichester, 426 

Chrysostom, Johannes, 298, 300 

Cintra, 155 

Clarendon, Earl of. See Villiers, Hon. 
George 

Clarke, Henrietta Maria (Hen.), 93 ; her 
birth and parentage, 92-93 ; arrives 
with her mother at Seville, 301 ; 
Marques de Santa Coloma speaks 
of her as Borrow's daughter, 316 ; 
her guitar-playing, 321 ; Borrow's 
affection for her, 322 ; return to 
England, 324 ; a trip in Wales with 
Borrow and her mother, 414-416 ; 
a summer holiday in the Isle of 
Man, 420 ; married to Dr William 
MacOubrey, 455 ; goes to live at 
Oulton again, 469 
Letter of, to George Borrow, 415 

Clarke, Mrs Mary, nee Skepper. See 
Borrow, Maiy, wife of George 
Borrow 

Clonmel, 16 

Cobbe, Frances Power, 335, 444, 445, 
446, 458 
Life of 445, 446, 456, 459 

Coisa d'Ouro, 205 

Colburtis United Service Magazine, 370 

Colchester, 13 

Colman, J. J., 472 

Colombres, 207 

Colquhoun, Sir Patrick, 363 

Colugna, 207 

Constantinople, 363, 367 

Convucion, 205 

Cooke, Robert, partner with John 
Murray, 404, 422, 433, 434 

Cordoba, 189, 314 

Cordoba, Bishop of, 227 

Corfu, 364 

Correo National, 251, 258 

Coruna, 202, 203, 205 

Coveja, 269 

Cowell, Prof. E. B., 4 2 7, 4 2 8 

Crabbe, Rev. George, 427, 467 



Crabbe, Rev. James, 98 

Croker, John Wilson, 399 

Crome, John, landscape painter, 15, 

31, 3 2 
Cromer, 423, 424 
Cullum, Lady, 382 
Cullum, Sir T., 382 
Cunningham, Allan, 73, 74, 354 
Cunningham, Rev. Francis, 92, 93, 96, 

137,444 
Letter of, to Rev. Andrew Brandram, 

93 
Curzon, Hon. Robert, 378 

Dalrymple, John, schoolfellow of 

Borrow, 25 
Danish Songs and Ballads, 73 
Danish Traditions and Superstitions, 73 
Death of Balder, The, translated from 

the Danish of Evald, 79 
Debreczin, 362 
Denniss, Rev., letter to George Borrow, 

347 
Despacho. See under Madrid 
D'Etreville, Rev. Thomas, Borrow's 

French master, 21 n. 
Diaz, Maria, Borrow's landlady in 
Madrid, 191, 234, 235, 268, 269, 
270, 285, 299 

Letter of, to George Borrow, 299 
Dickens, Charles, 394 
Dionysius of Cephalonia, 298 
Donne, W. B., 61, 143, 385, 427 

Letter of, to Bernard Barton, 385 

William Bodham Donne and His 
Friends, 385, 467 
Donnington, 439 
Douglas, 420 

Drake, Rev. Wm., of Mundesley, 27 «. 
Dryburgh, 393 
Dublin, 440 
Dublin Review, 351 
Duenas Palencia, 200 
Dumfries, 455 
Dutt, W. A., George Borrow in East 

Anglia, 476 

Earlham Hall, seat of J. J. Gurney, 

22 
East Dereham, 4, 8 

Eastern Daily Press, letter of Rev. 
Wm. Drake, 27 n. 
Letters of Elizabeth Harvey to, 331, 
33 2 , 3 2 3, 36o, 381, 404, 416, 
4 2 5 
Eastlake, Lady, Journals and Corre- 
spondence of, 361 
Ecclefechan, 455 
Edinburgh, 13, 455 



490 



INDEX 



Edinburgh Review, 369, 391, 396 
Elvas, 161, 162 

Elwin, Warwick, in Athenceum, 398 ; 
Some XVIII. Century Men of Letters, 
432, 433 
Elwin, Rev. Whitwell, 35, 429, 431, 
432, 434, 435, 453 
Letter of, to John Murray (III.), 432 
Ely, 423 

Entrena, Deigo de, Civil Governor of 
Madrid, 232, 234, 235, 236, 237, 
238, 239 
Letter of, to Sir George Villiers, 232- 

233 
Espaiiol, El, 173, 192 ;/., 212 
Estremoz, 161 

Eugenio, Pedro Martin de, police 
officer, 231, 232, 234, 237, 238, 245 

Falmouth, 185, 186, 283 

Faustus : His Life, Death, and Descent 

into Hell, translation, 53, 57, 71 
Fenn, Lady, wife of Sir John Fenn, 9 
Ferrol, 205 n. 
Festiniog, 416 
Finisterre, 77 «., 78 «., 185, 186, 204, 

328 
Fishguard, 439 
FitzGerald, Edward, 437 

Letters of, to George Borrow, 403, 
426, 427, 467-468 
to Prof. E. B. Cowell, 428, 437 
to W. B. Donne, 467 

Letters and Ltterary Remains of 428, 

437 
Flaming Tinman, The. See Heme, 

Anselo 
Flethers, Rev., 321 

Ford, Richard, 335, 342, 343, 344, 345, 
349, 354, 365, 367, 371, 390, 391, 
433 
Letters of, to George Borrow, 343, 
349, 351, 358, 365, 369, 371, 
390 
Ford, Richard, Letters of, 196, 330, 335, 
336, 349, 367, 387 
Hand-Booh for Travellers in Spain, 
368 
Foreign Office Papers at Record Office, 
77 «., 232, 242, 246, 255, 313 n., 

319 »• 

Foreign Quarterly Review, 86 

Fox, Caroline, her Memories of Old 

Friends, 101, 329, 359 
Foz, 205 
Francisco, Borrow's Basque servant, 

215,217, 234, 235, 246 
Eraser's Magazine, 370, 37 1 
French prisoners at Norman Cross, II 



Frias, Duke of, 283 
Fuente la Higuera, 287 

GALITZIN, Prince Alexander, 106, in 

Letter of, to John Venning, in n. 
Galiano, Alcala, 174, 175, 176 
Gamboa, Don Ramon de, 224 
Gazeta Oficial, 251, 266 
Genoa, 76, 77 
Gerling, Capt, 351 
Geronimo, Dom, 157 
Giant's Causeway, 440 
Gibraltar, 212, 225, 248, 303 
Gifford, William, 45 n. 
Gijon, 205 n. 

Gitano translation of Scriptures (St 
Luke), made by Borrow with the 
assistance of gypsy women, 217, 218 ; 
put in hand to print, 217 ; completed 
and published, 221 ; all copies of 
St Luke at shop seized, ordered to 
be placed in all public libraries, 228 ; 
new and revised edition, 462 
Gladstone, W. E., 373 
Glasgow, 440, 445 
Glen Luce, 455 
Globe, The, Vestiges of Borrow in, 375, 

376 n. 
Good Words, John Murray (IV.) in, 404 
Granada, 184 
Granja, La, 276 

Graydon, Lieut. Nevvenham, 179, 181, 

212-214, 224, 225, 226, 227, 241-243, 

248-251, 254-264, 274, 281, 307, 326, 

327, 328 

Great Yarmouth, 403, 405, 426, 427, 

428 
Greenock, 440 
Gretch, N. L, 112 
Gretna Green, 455 
Groome, F. H., 61, 339 

Introduction to Lavengro, 340 
in the Academy, 340, 462, 463 
in the Bookman, 400, 465 
Grosswardein, 362 
Grundtwig, Dr, 82 
Guadalajara, 287 
Guadarrama, 209 n. 
Gurney, Anna, 423, 424 
Gurney, John Joseph, Norwich banker, 

22, 92 n„ 93 «., IOI «., 137 
Gwinett, Ambrose, 450, 451 
Gypsies, 337-341 

in England, 12, 23, 36, 61-69, 375, 

376,455 
in Russia, 76, 143-145 
in Hungary, 76, 362 
in Turkey, 76 
in France, 76 



INDEX 



491 



Gypsies — contd. 

in Spain, 164-166, 186, 218, 221-222, 
295-296, 316 

in Wallachia, 362 
Gypsies of Spain, The, 52, 67, 75, 76, 

164, 165, 216, 217, 218, 221 «., 222, 

247, 33i, 334. 335- 336, 337, 333,339, 

343, 3fo, 356, 359, 361, 372, 376, 379, 

391, 462 
Gypsies, Southampton Committee for 

the amelioration of the condition of, 

9S 

Hacavo, Dr, 279 
Haggart, David, 14 

Hake, A. Egmont, in Athenaeum, 372, 
376,437,439,445, 448, 449, 451, 
469, 475 
in MacmillarC s Magazine, 394, 449 
Hake, Dr Thomas Gordon, 379, 448- 

451 
Letter of, to Mrs G. Borrow, 396 
.Memories of Eighty Years, 360, 379, 
380, 381, 382, 383, 390, 402, 
404, 410, 449, 474 
Hambley, Edmund, 2 
Hamburg, 107 
Harford Bridge, 22 
Harford Family, Annals of, 380 
Harvey, Elizabeth, 471 

Letters in Eastern Daily Press, 331, 
332, 333, 36o, 381, 404, 416, 

425 
Hasfeldt, J. P., 94, III, 126, 128, 129, 
135 n., 143, 146, 343, 344, 366, 

477 

Letters of, to George Borrow, 112, 
141 »., 247, 335, 351 
Hattersley, John, 99, 101 
Havre, 364 
Hawick, 455 
Hay, Drummond, Consul-General at 

Tangier, 303, 304, 305 
Haydon, B. R., historical painter, 32, 

47, 74. 436 n. 
Haydon, B. A\, Correspondence and 

Table- Talk of, 74 
Hayim Ben Attar, 304, 306, 307, 312, 

314, 324, 330, 331 
Hayland, Capt. J. R., 155 n. 
Henley, W. E., 473 n. 
Heme, Anselo {The Flaming Tinman'), 

61, 64, 66 
Heme, Mrs, 62 
Hervey, Lord Alfred, 382 
Hervey, Lord William, Charge d' Affaires 

at Madrid, 273, 278, 281 
Hill, D. B., 442 n. 
Hill, Henry, 440, 441 



Hill, John, 442 

Hitchin, W., of Bible Society, 288 

Holland, Rev. Wm., 5 n. 

Horncastle, 68, 435 

"Horrors," 26, 36, 48, 64, 107, 119, 

125, 135,283 
Howard de Walden, Lord, 158 
Hubbard, Egerton, 1 10 
Huddersfield, 191 

Inverness, 440 

Isturitz, Francisco de, Spanish Prime 

Minister, 174, 178, 181, 191, 192 
Italica, 295 

Jane, A. G., " Footprints of George 
Borrow," in The Bible in the World, 
271 
Janina, 364 
Jaraicejo, 166 
Jedburgh, 455 
Jerningham, Hon. G. S. S., Chargt 

d'Affaires at Seville, 310, 317 
Jessopp, Dr Augustus, in Athenceum, 

38l 
Journal of the Gipsy Lore Society, 96 n., 

186 n., 195, 316 
Jowett, Rev. Joseph, Literary Supt. of 
British & Foreign Bible Society, 
95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 
108, 286 
Letters of, to George Borrow, 102, 
103, 126, 134, 136, 138 

Kiakhta, 121, 134, 377 

Keats, John, 394 

Kelly, Sir Fitzroy, 382 

Kelso, 393, 455 

Kenyon, Dr F. G., 378 

Kerrich, Edmund, 426, 427, 467 

Kerrison, Allday, 88, 126 n. 

Kerrison, Roger, 26 n., 40, 42, 48 
Letter of, to John Borrow, 48 

Killey, George, 421 

King Arthur's Castle, 410 

Kingston Vale, 451 

Knapp, Dr W. J., Life of George 
Borrow, 25, 26, 31, 45 n., 53 «., 54, 
56, 57, 58, 60 »., 65, 66, 75, 77 n., 
93 «., 99, 155, 166, 320, 321, 328, 
347-348, 365, 406, 408, 412, 413, 430, 
r 43l ^,453,470,472 

Kolsovar, 362 

LABAJOS, 277, 288 

Lampeter, 439 

Land's End, 410 

Langholme, 455 

Latham, Dr Richard, 384, 448, 464 



492 



INDEX 



Laugharne, 439 

Lavengro, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, II, 13, 15, 

21 «., 22 «., 24, 30, 31, 32, 35, 49, 
50, 52, 54, 55. 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 
68, 69, 75, 78 «., 91, 162, 328, 329, 
340, 341- 365-368, 386, 387-401, 422, 
425, 429, 43o, 432, 433. 435, 456, 462, 
463 

Leighton, 439 

Leland, C. G.("Hans Breitmann "), 
48, 340 «., 363, 459, 460 

Letter of, to George Borrow, 459 

Leland, Charles Godfrey, by £. R. 
Pennell, 460 

Memoirs, 460, 461, 462 
Leon, 200 
Lerwick, 440 
Levy (Mousha in Lavengrd), Borrow's 

instructor in Hebrew, 33 
Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell, the 

Great Traveller, 54-58 
Lipovzoff, S. P., 94, 101, 102, 113, 115, 

116, 131, 133, 135, 138, 139 
Lisbon, 152-156, 159, 185-186, 317 
Liskeard, 1, 2, 406 
Lister, Albert, 252 
Llanes, 207 

Llangollen, 381, 414, 416 
Lockhart, J. G., 350, 369, 370 

Letters of, to J. Murray (III.), 369 
to R. Ford, 370 
London — 

16 Milman St., Bedford Row, 41 
26 Bryanston St., Portman Sq., 74 

17 Great Russell Street, 78 
7 Museum Street, 80 

Earl Street, 95, 101, 104, 116, 185, 

279-282 
Spread Eagle, Gracechurch St., 324 
St Peter's, Cornhill, 324 

22 Hereford Square, 444, 457 
Brompton Cemetery, 457, 471, 472 
Waterloo Bridge, 466 

Longe, John, to whom Borrow supplied 

some autobiographical notes, 23, 2<; 

«•, 34 
Lopez, Eduardo, 270 
Lopez, Juan, husband of Maria Diaz, 

Borrow's landlady at Madrid, 269, 

270, 275, 276, 277, 285 
Liibeck, 108 
Luarca, 205 
Lugo, 201, 202 
Lyell, Sir Charles, 459 
Lynn, 423 

MacOubrey, Henrietta Maria. See 

Clarke, Henrietta Maria 
MacOubrey, Wm., M.D., 455, 469, 471 



Madrid, 75, 77, 167-184, 191-198, 209- 
269, 271-275, 276, 284-289, 306, 
^ 307, 309, 317-322 
Calle de la Zara, 167-184 
12 Calle de Santiago, 191, 218, 231, 

234, 285 
Despacho de la Sociedad Biblica y 
Estrangera, 25 Calle de Principe, 
214, 216, 220, 221, 228, 230, 231, 
250, 267, 275. 299 n. 

Mafra, 153 

Mahmoud, Borrow's Tartar servant, 
112, 126 

Malaga, 184, 242, 249, 250, 254, 255, 
272, 273 

Manchegan Prophetess, 284, 292 

Manchu translation of the Bible — 
Lipovzoff commissioned by Bible 
Society to translate New Testament, 
94 ; Father Puerot's translation of 
most of the Old Testament and two 
books of the New discovered in St 
Petersburg, 95 ; Borrow commis- 
sioned to study the language, with 
a view of going to assist Lipovzoff 
in St Petersburg, 97 ; after nineteen 
weeks' study he is selected, 101 ; and 
sent off, 104 ; the whole of Puerot's 
version transcribed and collated in six 
months, 113 ; permissions granted to 
print, 115 ; the type had been stored 
in damp cellar, 117 ; proposal for 
binding, 117 ; plans for distribution, 
120; exorbitant price asked for 
printing reduced by 58 per cent., 122, 
129 ; and of paper reduced to a 
third, 123, 128 ; St Matthew set and 
printed from bad copy, by composi- 
tors who did not know the language, 
127; St Mark well in hand, 128; 
type found loose and trodden into 
muddy floor, 129 ; compositors to 
be taught the alphabet, indecipher- 
able copy, paper late in delivery and 
short in quantity and bad in quality, 
bad paper printed, 130; had to be 
replaced, another papermaker found, 
131 ; binding, 123-133 ; copies of the 
Four Gospels sent home to the 
Society, 137 ; printing of New 
Testament complete, and six vols, 
bound, 140 ; difficulties of shipment 
to England, 140-141 ; opinions of the 
work, its cost, 146 ; the whole 
edition sent to Earl St., 146 

Manzanares, 284, 292 

Marin, Don Pascual, 225-227, 251, 261 

Marks, William, British Consul at 
Malaga, 242, 243, 248 



INDEX 



493 



Marrin Mufioz, 277 

Marseilles, 77, 364 

Martineau, Dr James, schoolfellow of 

Borrow's at Norwich, 20, 25, 445 
Martineau, Harriet, Autobiography, 33, 

35, 105 
Mattishall Burgh, 440, 44 r, 442 
Maturin, C. R., his Melmolh the 

Wanderer, 297 n. 
Medina del Campo, 200 
Melrose, 455 
Mendizabal, Juan Alvarez y, 170, 171, 

174 
Menheniot, I, 2 
Meridia, 166 
Mickiewicz, 143 
Milford Haven, 439 
Mocejon, 269 
Mogadore, 304 
Moll, Benedict, 353 
Montemor Novo, 160 
Monthly Magazine, The, 41, 43, 45, 53, 

72, 73 
Monthly Review, 8 1 n. 
Morris, Huw, 414, 418 
Morshead, Captain, afterwards General, 

3 
Mortimer's Cross, 439 
Moscow, 143-145 

Marina Rotze, 144, 145 
Moultan, 296 
Mousehold Heath, 23, 36 
Mousehole, 410 

Mousha, in Lavengro. See Levy 
Mull, 440 
Muros, 205 
Murray, John (I.), 5 
Murray, John (II.), 49, 335- 358 

Letters of, to George Borrow, 341, 
351, 357, 372, 383 
Murray, John (III.), 5 *•■ 433, 434, 443 

Letters of, to George Borrow, 371, 
374, 388, 389, 399, 428, 433 
to Mrs Borrow, 388, 389, 422, 452 

in Good Words, 404 
Murray, John (IV.), 385 
Murray, Miss Jane, 5 

Napier, Lieut.-Col. E. H. D. E., 76, 
294-297 
Excursions along the Shores of the 
Mediterranean, 76 «. , 294, 297 
Navaia, 205 

Naval Carnero, 287, 289 
New Forest, 456 
New Magazine , The, 41 
New Monthly Magazine, The, 41 
Newport (Mon.), 439 
Newton Stewart, 455 



Nogales, 201 

Norman Cross, II, 396 

French prisoners at, 1 1 
North Repps, 424 
Norwich — 

Grammar School, 15, 19, 20 

Willow Lane, 19, 71, 72, 78, 101, 
149, 402, 469 

Tuck's Court, St Giles, 26, 27, 29, 332 

Upper Close, 27 

Guildhall, 31 

21 King Street, 33 

Horse Fair, 78 

Lakenham, 123 

Norfolk Hotel, St Giles, 469 
Novales, 205 n. 

OCANA, 276 

O'Connell, D., 359, 423 

Ofalia, Count, Prime Minister of Spain, 

211, 220, 222, 223, 224, 229, 235- 

244, 248, 249, 250, 256, 266, 269, 

272, 273, 278, 28l, 283, 395 

Letters of, to Sir George Villiers, 

254-255, 267, 273 

Olivan, Mr, 175, 176, 179 

Ona, 209 n. 

Once a Week, 455 

Ontane'da, 209 n. 

Oporto, 76 

Orviedo, 205-207, 255, 272 

O'Shea, Mr, banker at Madrid, 196 

Oteiza, Dr, 217 

Oulton Cottage, 325, 330-371, 466, 469 

Oulton Hall, 92, 149, 371, 374, 402, 
403, 416, 456 

Ounse, 203 

Owen, Gronwy, 417, 418, 439 

Padron, 203, 204 

Paget, Lieut. Henry, 5 

Palmerston, Lord, 158, 307, 377 

Pamplona, 77, 328 

Paper, cost of, in Russia, 123, 128; 

in Spain, 191 
Paris, 75, 77, 88, 279, 362, 364 
Peel, Sir Robert, 352 
Pembroke, 439 
Penquite, 406, 409, 410, 419 
Pentire Point, 410 
Penzance, 410 
Perez de Castro, Evarsto, 317 

Letter of, to Mr Aston, 317-319 
Perfrement, Ann, See Borrow, Ann, 

mother of George Borrow 
Perfremenr, Samuel, grandfather of 

George Borrow, 4 
Perth, 440 
Peterborough, 414 



494 



INDEX 



Peto, Sir S. M., 37ii 372, 395 

Petulengro, Mr, 12, 23, 36, 62, 63, 65, 
66, 67, 68, 473 

Petulengro, Mrs, 65 

Petulengro, Ambrose (Jasper in Laven- 
gro), 12, 22, 339 

Phillips, H. W., R.A., 357 

Phillips, Sir Richard, publisher, 41-52, 
56, 57, 60, 72 

Phillips, Richard, jun., son of Sir 
Richard, 43 

Pitiegua, 200 n. 

Playfair, Dr W. S., 456, 457 

Pluchard, M., printer, St Petersburg, 
129, 131 

Plymouth, 405 

Plymouth Mail, 405 

Pontevedra, 203, 255, 272, 273 

Porter, George, of Denbigh, 418 

Portugal, 154-162 

Prevesa, 364 

Primate of Spain. See Toledo, Arch- 
bishop of 

Printing, cost of, in Russia, 122, 129; 
in Spain, 192 

Prophetess, the Manchegan. See 
Manchegan Prophetess 

Proximate Causes of the Material Pheno- 
mena of the Universe, 44, 45, 49-51 

Puerot, Father, 95, 113 

Puerto de Fuencebadon, 201 

Puerto Manzanal, 201 

Purland, Theodosius and Francis, 
schoolfellows of Borrow, 25 

Quarterly Review, 3 50, 368, 369, 388, 
~ 431, 432, 433, 435, 436 n., 444 
Queen Regent of Spain, 243, 244, 246, 

264 
Quiro?a, General, Military Governor of 

Madrid, 236, 239, 240 

Revolution of La Granja, 88, 182 

Riba de Sella, 207 

Richmond Park, 468, 469 

Ritchie, J. Ewing, East Anglia, 470 

Rivadeo, 205 

Rivas, Duke of, 174, 175, 176, 179 

Roehampton, 448, 468 

Romano Lavo-Lil, 12, 415 «., 455, 462- 

464, 467 
Romantic Ballads, translated from the 

Danish, and Miscellaneous Pieces, 41- 

42, 73, 79 
Romany Rye quoted from, 36, 40, 49, 
55, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 90, 328, 329, 
354 «•, 355 "•> 372, 377, 378, 391, 
394, 397, 401, 4", 412, 413, 421, 
422, 425, 428-438, 462, 463 



Rome, 364 

Romero, Rey, 353 

Rossi, Theodore, 419 n. 

Rous, Hon. Wm. Rufus, 374 

Rule, Rev. W. H., of the Wesleyan 

Methodist Society, 212, 213, 225- 

227, 248, 250, 328 
Letter of, to Geo. Borrow, 225 

St Cleer, 2, 3, 406, 410 

St Davids, 439 

St Michael's Mount, 410 

St Petersburg, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108- 
143, 145-146, 221 ; Galernoy Ulitza, 
1 10 

Salamanca, 199, 255, 272 

Salisbury, 6 1 

Salonika, 364 

Sampson, John, 60, 68, 69, 339, 398 

Sanchez, Mariano Paz y, 99 

San Cyprian, 277 

San Lucar, 293, 302, 303, 306 

Santa Maria, 205 n. 

San Sebastian, 229 

Santa Coloma, Marques de, 186, 195, 
288, 328 

Santa Cruz, 312, 313 

Santander, 207, 208 

Santiago, 202, 203, 255, 272, 273 n., 353 

Santillana, 207 

San Vincente, 207 

Schilling de Canstadt, Baron, 94, io5, 
in, 115, 117, 131, 133, 137, 142 

Schmidt, Dr I. J., 104, 114, 116 «., 133 

Schultz & Beneze, printers, St Peters- 
burg, 122, 129, 130, 131, 135, 142, 

J 43 
Scio de San Miguel, Father Felipe, his 

Spanish translation of the Bible, 192, 

212, 214, 221, 227, 242, 254, 267, 273, 

299 
Scott, Sir Walter, 393 
Seccombe, Thomas, in Bookman, 86, 476 
Segovia, 276 

Seville, 76, 188, 255, 272, 283, 284, 289, 
291-303, 305-317, 322-324 

Posada de la Reyna, 293 ; Plazuela 
de la Pila Seca, 299, 303, 311- 
317, 322-324 
Seymour, Lady Augusta, 382 
Sheffield, 19 
Sherringham, 424 
Shrewsbury, 439 
Sidi Habismilk, Borrow's Arabian 

horse, 285, 287, 299, 324, 330, 368, 

380 
Simpkin & Marshall, 53 n., 57, 71 
Simpson & Rackham, solicitors, 

Norwich, 26, 28, 40 



INDEX 



495 



Simpson, William, of Simpson & 
Rackham, solicitors, 27, 28, 29, 30, 

31 
Skepper, Mrs Anne, 92, 149, 300 
Skepper, Breame, 92, 300 
Skepper, Edmund, 92, 149, 300 
Skepper, Mary, afterwards Mrs Henry 

Clarke. See Borrow, Mary, wife of 

George Borrow 
Sleeping Bard, The, translated from the 

Welsh of Elis Wyn, 87, 441 
Slingsby. Jack, 61, 64, 424 
Smiles', S., A Publisher and his Friends, 

335 
Smith, Gypsy. See Petulengro 
Snaefell, 421 
Snowdon, 415 
Songs 0/ Europe, or Metrical Translations 

from All the European Languages, 

428 n. 
Songs of Scandinavia, 80, 81, 377 
Sothern, Mr, private secretary to Sir 

George Villiers, 234, 235, 236, 237, 

259- 317 
Soto Luino, 205 

Spain, 163-184, 186-279, 283-324 
Spanish translation of Scriptures — 
Borrow sent to Portugal and Spain, 
151 ; application to the Government 
for permission to print, 171 ; permis- 
sion granted, 180 ; with the sugges- 
tion to employ Government printer, 
181 ; provisional arrangements made, 
183 ; saving in cost of paper, 191 ; 
and of printing, read three times by 
Borrow and revised by Dr Usoz, 
192 ; five thousand copies printed, 

195 
Spectator, The, 454 
Stafford, 67 

Stephen, Sir Leslie, 45 n. 
Stoddart, Col. Charles, schoolfellow of 

Borrow's at Norwich, 20 
Stonehenge, 61, 399 
Stradbroke, Earl of, 374, 376 
Stranraer, 455 
Strickland, Agnes, 383 
Swan, Rev. Wm , 94, 95, 104, 108, 109, 

114, 1 16 



Talavera, 167, 287 

Talisman, The, from the Russian of 

Alexander Pushkin, with Other 

Pieces, 143 
Tarn worth, 68, 69 
Tangier, 303-305 
Targum, or Metrical Translations from 

Thirty Languages and Dialects, 142 



Tarn, J., treasurer, British & Foreign 

Bible Society, 135 n. 
Tawno Chikno, 23, 66 
Taylor, Anne, cousin to George Borrow, 

405,411,414 
Taylor, Anne, jun., 409 
Taylor, Baron I. J. Severin, 188, 294 
Taylor, John, publisher, 73 
Taylor, Robert, husband of George 

Borrow's cousin, Anne Borrow, 405, 

410 
Taylor, William, of Norwich, 33-35, 41, 
105, 366 

Memoir of, by J. W. Robberds, 
quoted, 34 
Templemore, 17 
Tenby, 439 

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 394 
Tetuan, 304 
Thackeray, W. M., 382 
Thurso, 440 
Thomas, Ellen (Ellen Jones in Wild 

Wales), 417, 418 
Thurtell, John, 22, 51, 366, 367 
Tunes, The, 355 
Tintagel, 410 
Toledo, 216, 275, 283 
Toledo, Archbishop of, Primate of 

Spain, 17 «., 241, 252, 253 
Truro, 410 
Ty Gronwy, 417 
Type-setting of Manchu Testament, 

117, 127, 128, 130 

Universal Review, 44, 45, 48 
University Press, St Petersburg, 122 
Upcher, Rev. A. VV., in Athenceum, 424 
Uppington, 439 

Usoz, Dr Louis de, editor of El 
Espanol, 174, 182, 192, 211 

Valencia, 212-214, 226, 262, 266, 272 
Valladolid, 200, 203, 209 «., 255, 272, 

273 n. 
Valpy, Rev. E., Borrow's schoolmaster 

at Norwich, 20, 23, 25 
" Veiled Period " of Borrow's life, 57, 

72-91, 328 
Venice, 364 
VenniDg, John, 106, no, in 

Memorials of, ill 
Vestiges of Borrow: Some Personal 

Reminiscences, in The Globe, 375, 

376 ;/. 
Victoriano, 285, 287, 288 
Vidocq, Eugene Francois, 361 
Vienna, 362, 364 
Vigo, 203 
Vilallos, 277 



496 



INDEX 



Villafranca, 201 

Villa Luenga, 269 „ 

Villa Seca, 268, 269, 270 

Villa Viciosa, 207 

Villiers, Hon. George, afterwards Sir 
George, and later Earl of 
Clarendon, British Minister at 
Madrid, 170, 176, 178, 179, 180, 
181, 191, 192, 197, 21T, 213, 215, 
219, 220, 222, 224, 232, 235-246, 
248, 249, 252, 253, 254, 256, 258, 
264, 266, 271, 272, 273, 274, 281, 
283,285, 317, 336, 358, 374 
Letters of, to George Borrow, 179 
to Lord Palmerston, 215, 238, 239, 

240, 241, 243, 244 
to Count Ofalia, 229-230, 234 «., 

237,255 
to Diego de Entrena, 236, 237 
Viviero, 205 

Vocabulary of the Gypsy Language as 
spoken in Hungary and Transylvania, 
MS. of George Borrow in British 
Museum, 364 

WALLING, R. A. J., George Borrow, 

407, 408 
Wandering Children and the Benevolent 

Gentleman, The, 25 
Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 339, 396, 
397, 410,446, 449, 451,464, 466, 
468 
Notes upon George Borrow, introduc- 
tion to Lavengro, 396, 399 



Watts-Dunton, Theodore — contd. 

In Defence of Borrow, introduction to 
Romany Rye, 447 n. 

in The Athenaeum, 464, 466, 468, 
473 
Webb, Joseph Cator, 300 
Webster, Rev. Wentworth, 12 n., 17 «., 

95, 186 «., 195, 316, 328 
Welsh Preacher, the, 62, 90 
Whewell, Wm, 385 
White, Blanco, 252 
Whitely, Rev. E., of Oporto, 76, 152, 

153 
Wick, 440 
Wilby, John, 151, 152, 153, 156, 175, 

186 
Wild Wales quoted from, 27, 28, 30, 31, 

41, 109 «., 321, 322, 328, 355 «., 381, 

415, 417-420, 425, 452-455, 477 
Willenhall, 63, 68, 69 
Williams, Mr, Consul at Seville, 311, 

312, 323 
Wilson, Sir Archdale, schoolfellow of 

Borrow's at Norwich, 20 
Wisbech, 423 

Wood, Charles, 192, 252, 256, 281 
Woodfall, H. D., printer, 389, 422 
Wordsworth, 393 

Yare, river, 22, 23 
Yetholm, 455 
Yuncler, 269 

Zincali, The. See The Gypsies of Spain 



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